Fine Art Mixed Media BA Honours

Drawing on the experience gained in Semester 1, this module helps you to develop your continued individual practical pursuit in fine art practice. It encourages an independent approach to developing fine art practice with the aim of producing a substantial body of work for exhibition. Delivery consists of fine art and technical workshops. Initial tutorials, reflecting on work so far, with later tutorial input and the course of gallery visits, seminars and talks to aid the practical and theoretical research process, and increase critical awareness, within an increasingly professional context. 

This module provides an induction and understanding of creative and collaborative research practice, assessment processes and group working required in creative practice subjects. The module will introduce you to the University’s commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs).

You'll be challenged to experiment individually, undertaking contextual and practical research, which will contribute to a significant group project where students will be allocated creative roles in groups working collaboratively.

As well as exploring creative processes, the module provides an opportunity for you to gain an understanding of other disciplines, and if you choose, to work with students from other disciplines, or use disciplinary approaches beyond your own course of study. It also introduces you to the wider community of creative practice at the Harrow Campus.

An introduction to the practical and critical challenges of producing contemporary fine art. Using proposed starting points as triggers to self directed enquiry, the aim is to provoke a process of practical and critical enquiry across a range of media. You will consider context and content via presentations and through a journal. A course of technical workshops and on-going tutorial support, screenings and seminars provide additional impetus alongside an on going diet of recommended exhibitions and events.

The module will examine, via a series of lectures with the potential for discussion, the contemporary art context you are historically located within. In particular focussing on the very diverse (pluralist) contemporary scene that puts an emphasis on ‘practice’ over materials. The course involves a broad overview of key themes from 20th century art such as Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Feminist Art and Participatory Art. Further to which the prefix of ‘Post’ – as in Post-Modern, PostColonial or Post-Conceptual will be unpacked and elucidated. Lectures and discussion will also introduce you to principles of academic writing, such as essay structure, bibliography and using footnotes.

The aim of this module is to raise and discuss issues that drive contemporary art practice. It will critically examine the way that ideas take form and how histories of contemporary art are written and received. These issues are explored with reference to the work of a range of contemporary artists, practices and critical texts. This module also acts as an important transitional point between previous contextual studies and studio-based modules and the Level 6 dissertation. Students are encouraged to identify and explore an essay topic that will form the basis of their dissertation research.

This module is studio based. The aim of the module is to encourage you to experiment and take risks with materials, processes and ideas which you may have encountered in level 4. Within the module your developing body of work is supported by a growing awareness of the need to contextualise and critically evaluate the work you produce, including in relation to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). You will be required to attend specific seminars, tutorials and workshops. You will obtain new skills, technical, practical and critical which will support your practice. You will be required to exhibit your work at the end of the semester, give a presentation to your tutor group and discuss your approach and influences.

This module introduces you to the professional creative industries and provides you with experience of related workplace environments, relevant to the host course, through a range of tailored professional projects, including a work placement (alternatives may include client-set briefs and curated public events). Taught sessions introduce different career possibilities and provide an overview of professional skills, as well as introducing you to relevant support within the University and external professional networks and support services.

This module introduces key debates within Fine Art from the 20th century to the present. It focuses on the theoretical concepts that have influenced visual art practices and the contexts from which they have arisen. It considers the emergence of new art forms, such as performance and video, and current questions concerning more dispersed, relational and research-based practices. A series of lectures, some by visiting speakers, will provide you with an understanding of the relationships these debates have to different areas of practice in contemporary Fine Art.

This module is practice based and supports you to consolidate personal concerns relevant to the development of your practice, within the arena of contemporary Fine Art. The module enables you to develop a body of work with increasing conceptual depth, and to build on your ability to contextualise and critical evaluate your work. Within the module you are required to attend seminars, tutorials and artists talks. The module facilitates and guides independent research. The curated end of year show develops an understanding and confidence in the issues and processes of curation.

This is an intensive practice-based module that enables you to develop a deeper engagement with and understanding of the work that you produce. The aim is to create a body of work that demonstrates a high level of engagement with materials, mediums and media and the conceptual, critical and contextual concerns that inform contemporary fine art practices. This module should be a summative experience for you that culminates in the realisation of a body of work for the Degree Show at the end of the module. The professional skills of planning, curating and installing an exhibition are combined with participation in the publicity and marketing of your work in the Degree show. A Critical Evaluation is also a requirement of the module to ensure that your developing body of work is supported by your increasing ability to contextualise and critically analyse and evaluate your practice and the work that you produce. The module also helps you to focus on the relationship between the practical and the professional. You'll be encouraged to focus on and consider the way that you present yourself and your specific practices in the context of future career options and post-graduate study opportunities.

The Research Project is an extended piece of work, building on a proposal developed at Level 5 in the host course. Through self-initiated research, you'll identify an appropriate topic relevant to your discipline and embark on a process of supervised but independent inquiry. A distinctive feature of this Research Project is that it is a substantial piece of critical academic work, which embeds research and a theoretical framework as appropriate for a dissertation but offers you options in terms of output format. The format might be that of a Dissertation (8,000 words), but alternative forms are also available, to be negotiated and agreed with your project supervisor.

This is a practice-based module that encourages you to reflect on, reconsider and/or consolidate what you have learned and achieved in the Contemporary Fine Art Practice modules at Level 5. The aim of the module is to ensure that your developing body of work is supported by your increasing ability to select, experiment with and use appropriate materials, mediums and media. It also focuses on your ability to research and develop your conceptual, contextual and critical engagement with the work that you produce. The teaching on the module also encourages you to develop a more confident and independent approach to your practice that is derived from your individual interests, concerns and ambitions.