Contemporary Art Practice

This creative research module is designed to initiate you into creative research methods and enables you to develop your own reflective and critical methodology. You will learn via a combination of workshops and lectures about existing artistic methodologies and then develop your own research that utilises a wide range of contextual and theoretical sources. You will be encouraged to develop personal philosophies with regard to your own creative practice and the ways in which you might seek to find creative solutions within your work. You will be supported in developing an understanding of the precedents, frameworks and debates that form the nature of the context for your discipline/s. A series of structured learning activities provide a multi-disciplinary platform that will support you in extending and developing your portfolio of creative research skills.

This module supports you to develop and evaluate a contemporary art practice, and the production of an individual body of work, as a means to a tacit and articulate understanding of the contemporary subject at an advanced level. You are encouraged to extend the learning of Research Lab 1 and demonstrate creative strategies relevant to the context of contemporary fine art. The module supports you in the production and articulation of a peer exhibition that employs the use of critical reflection in the editing and selecting of work in the context of contemporary debates and strategies of display. At the end of the module, you will collaborate with your fellow students in the production of a group show in a gallery space.

This module follows on from Research Lab 1 and develops the ideas you have initiated into an extended piece of critical writing. The aim of the module is to support you in critical research and developing and refining writing for a targeted audience and platform. You will learn about a variety of potential locations for your written work and will use a variety of different forms of writing which could include a journal article, a review, an essay, a piece of art writing or critical creative text. You will gain an in-depth theoretical insight into your practice and its contexts.

In this module you will negotiate a project with an external partner, understand how a residency functions and learn how to set up a project independently. Putting into practice you research objectives from previous modules, you are encouraged to engage with the site in conceptual and material processes. You will be required to do research on the site to situate your response. You will produce both a project outline that demonstrates the research done prior to the residency and the work you set out to make. The exhibition should evidence a genuine engagement with site and situational specificity.

This practice-based module considers the practical, conceptual, theoretical, and perceptual processes of Fine Art. The module is the culmination of a sequence of practical modules designed to support you through the establishment, development and evaluation of a contemporary art practice, and the production of an individual body of work, as a means to a tacit and articulate understanding of the contemporary subject at an advanced level. The module supports you in the independent development, refinement, and evaluation of a body of experimental work and culminates in the curation of a major professional exhibition.