• Offered for Year: 2024/25

• Module Leader(s): Professor Katie Cuddon
• Lecturer: Ms Tracey Tofield
• Other Staff: Professor Christopher Jones, Dr Christian Mieves, Professor Wolfgang Weileder, Professor Catrin Huber, Miss Jennifer Douglas, Professor Louise Wilson, Ms Catherine Bertola, Professor Jane Wilson, Miss Michele Allen, Ms Judith King

• Owning School: Arts & Cultures
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

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

Aims

1. To enable the student to carry out sustained individual enquiry.
2. To encourage the student to further develop and apply appropriate strategies for researching and progressing visual ideas and material.
3. To develop the student’s understanding of professional practice and capacity to work independently.
4. To develop the student’s ability to rigorously assess studio work and to place it into context.
5. To encourage the student’s participation in debate around issues pertinent to Fine Art practice.
6. To develop the student’s knowledge and understanding of professional practice.

Outline Of Syllabus

In this module students concentrate on developing a rigorous, well-managed, informed and independent personal practice. Students develop a body of work directed by choices of media, studio discipline and subject or theme. Emphasis is placed both on consolidating knowledge, understanding and skills developed in Stage 2 of the programme and on further exploring formal, conceptual and technical aspects of practice. Methods employed in the documentation and public presentation of art work are explored.

The module also includes a Life Work Art (LWA) component in which students propose an ‘external facing’ project which provides first-hand experience of working within a semi-professional and public context. This project covers two semesters and so has the possibility to encompass live external facing projects. If the situation requires students can also deliver online projects.

The module proceeds by means of a schedule of tutorials with the student’s studio tutor, Life Work Art tutorials, group critiques, lectures from the Visiting Speakers’ programme and a programme of practice related seminars and workshops. In addition students may receive tutorials from visiting artists, are encouraged to make use of the surgery tutorial system to request tutorials with specific members of staff, and to participate in discipline-specific forums. Also included is the regular upkeep of a studio notebook/sketchbook, in digital or physical form, that records and reflects upon research, progress and outputs. Students will carry out and write up a Life Work Art external project.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Most Guided Independent Study, including project work and skills practice is focused on the individual development and production of experimental and fully realised artworks, including research and preparation such as sketch books, test pieces and technical trials. The regular upkeep of a studio notebook/sketchbook, in digital or physical form, records and reflects upon research, progress and outputs.

Scheduled leaching and learning activities such as workshops, demonstrations, individual tutorials and small group teaching will also be conducted present in person in the Fine Art studios and workshops (or synchronous online if necessary).

Tutorials facilitate the development of the student’s understanding and skills in all aspects of their practice: organisational, developmental, formal, conceptual, technical, contextual and professional. They also nurture the student’s ability to evaluate and reflect, to articulate their ideas and debate issues relevant to their practice. Group critiques foster the student’s ability to reflect critically on their own work and that of others and to formulate reasoned responses to the views of others.

Skills-based workshops allow students to broaden their range of technical skills, exploring new means of making or developing an existing methodology. Students are also encouraged to choose from a range of discipline-specific forums, which provide the space for conversations within a particular area of art practice, such as Painting, Performance or Film. These groups enable discussion around both technical skills and ideas/artists pertinent to the discipline, helping students situate their work within the context of contemporary practice. Professional practice workshops help prepare students for the assessment submission process, whilst developing skills essential for life as a creative

The Visiting Speakers’ Programme extends the student’s awareness of the spectrum of Fine Art practice and the different ways in which theory might relate to and sustain practice. It also provides a wide range of examples of approaches to developing a practice and presenting and documenting art work.

The module also includes a Life work Art component, equivalent to 5 credits, in which students propose, develop and write up an external-facing project which provides first-hand experience of working within a semi-professional and public context. This covers two semesters and so has the possibility to encompass live external projects. Students can deliver online projects should the situation require it.

Scheduled teaching and learning activities will typically be conducted present in person in the Fine Art studios and workshops. Teaching methods may be liable to adjustment in response to changes to Government and University Covid-19 advice and restrictions. Some PiP teaching would be substituted by equivalent synchronous and asynchronous online delivery. Where scheduled teaching and learning activities are delivered via non-synchronous online sessions they will be followed by a synchronous on-line drop-in Q&A session.

Assessment Methods

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

Other Assessment

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The portfolio will focus on the physical and/or documentary evidence of the student’s creative practice supported by other contextual, research and reflective material including a LWA reflective report. This enables assessment of the full range of a student’s engagement with the module in relation to: sound research and developmental methods: technical processes and materials; identification of subject matter; formal and conceptual considerations; contextual understanding; independent planning, management and direction of their practice; critical self-reflection and professional practice. It will show the basis and development of a viable and effective creative practice and its capacity to develop a body of art work towards resolution.

NB. Life Work Art represents 5 credits of the overall module, and is assessed by the LWA report submitted in Semester 2 – this contributes 6.2% of the overall module mark: 3.1% in each semester.

Reading Lists

• FIN3012's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• FIN3012's Timetable