FIN8022 - Contemporary Art Practice 3: Residency and Exhibition

• Offered for Year: 2025/26

• Module Leader(s): TBC

• Owning School: School of Arts and Cultures
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

• Capacity limit: 25 student places

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

1. Semester 1 Credit Value:	40
   Total Credits:	40.0

Aims

Studio Residency and Exhibition enables the independent development and realisation of an ambitious and distinctive body of work in a public exhibition, and in preparation for professional practice. Students are supported to independently consolidate learning and direct their own practical, critical, and theoretical approaches towards an ambitious material and visual communication in a public exhibition of professional standard.

They will have a confident and critical understanding of the theoretical, and professional structures within which contemporary art practices exist. They will be supported to deploy their advanced knowledge of studio and exhibition practice in structuring their own research and production towards a rigorous, resolved and ambitious public presentation of critically-engaged studio work.

They are enabled to collaborate with peers and communicate with professionals in the field to realise and promote the public exhibition. In short, the module aims to establish ambition, innovative problem solving, advanced practical skills, critical thinking, self-reliance, collaboration, time management and organisation.

Outline Of Syllabus

The syllabus provides a responsive learning environment where students are exposed to a wide range of critical and practical knowledge and are enabled to independently test and explore their own studio work and creative identity.

Individual tutorials with a designated supervisor will take place approximately every 3 weeks. Students also have opportunity for tutorials with fine art staff and visiting speakers. A weekly programme of lectures, workshops, seminars, and group critique will run through the semester. Students can also attend visiting lectures and PGR seminars.

Topics may include:

• Discipline specific practical skills
• Art History
• Contemporary Practices
• Cultural Theory
• Visual analysis
• Curatorial methods

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The module is structured around students independently developing and presenting studio productions in an ambitious public exhibition. It places emphasis on independent studio working and the practical development of a critically engaged and distinctive body of work. The scheduled teaching, and the interdisciplinary environment supports the development of practical productions, collaboration, critical understanding, and the skills to evaluate, direct, resolve and professionally present a body of work. The interdisciplinary dialogue also enables students to further refine, identify and contextualise their own methodologies and ambitions (K1-4; S1-4).

The Module Talk introduces the aims and structure of the module and allows the students to begin discussing this as a group. (K1;(S4). Individual Tutorials offer responsive supervision focused on the development of an ambitious and distinctive body of practical work within public exhibition. They encourage students to assess all aspects of practical productions and their presentation. They facilitate the advancement and application of relevant skills, and critical positions in relation to historical and current debates and professional fine art contexts (K1-4; S1; S2; S3).

Group Critiques enable interdisciplinary interaction and dialogue and are an opportunity to test innovative work with a diverse audience. In a peer supported environment students are encouraged to advance and refine their communication and critical analysis skills around their own work and the work of others, and to offer and receive constructive feedback (K1; K2; S1; S2; S3).

Student led group activity allows students to collaborate and negotiate across disciplines and with a range of professional individuals and bodies, and to strategize and organise the practical realisation and promotion of an ambitious contemporary public exhibition (K3; K4; S3; S4).

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessments:

Creative Project (85%)

Allows students to evaluate and present their own critically engaged and resolved practical productions within a public exhibition of a professional standard. It requires advanced practical skills, critical reflection, and contextual understanding. It enables students to demonstrate interdisciplinary collaboration and effective negotiation with peers and with external professional individuals and bodies (K1-4; S1-4).

The task specific marking criteria are as follows:

1. Contextualisation and organisation evidenced by the planning, realisation and promotion of a public exhibition. (K3; K4; S2; S4);
2. Practical skills, critical reflection and research, evidenced by the development and realisation of the individual fine art practice. (K1; K2; K3; S1; S2; S3);
3. Practical skills, organisation, critical reflection, communication, and contextualisation evidenced by the consolidation, realisation and presentation of the individual fine art practice within exhibition (K1-4; S1-4).

Exhibition Portfolio (15%)

Requires the digital documentation of the works in exhibition, and a reflective, critical ‘catalogue essay’, that identifies and interrogates key aspects of the exhibition’s concepts and methodologies, to be presented in an appropriate form. It allows the student to demonstrate their ambitions and contextual understanding of their work, as well as the ability to evaluate and communicate complex ideas in different formats. This should be accompanied by an applicable Bibliography. The task specific criteria are as follows:

1. Practical skill and communication evidenced by the selection and structuring of relevant material (S2; S3);
2. Critical reflection, contextualisation and research evidenced by the interpretation and communication of ideas aims and ambitions relevant to the practice (K2; K4).

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/