BA (Hons) Fine Art

Demonstrations: Making skills are learnt

Workshops: Practical or theoretical projects

Individual tutorials: Discuss academic progress

Group seminars: Talk about art work / practice and ideas

Group critiques: Discuss art work critically and respond to questions

Presentations: Present art work or a slide show to peers

Lectures: Critically engaged visual presentations

Study Visits: To local, national or international cultural places

External projects: Testing art practice through exhibition

These activities can take place both on and off campus and occur over all three years.

Independent study time is of fundamental importance for learning. We facilitate strategies to help students develop and manage independent learning.

Independent study time consists of two main activities:

1. Studio Practice (Praxis)

The skills and knowledge gained from the taught activities help inform individual work. Speculative material investigations take place. Uncertainty must be managed.

2. Contextual Research and Reflection

This can take place simultaneously in the studio and elsewhere, such as the AUB library or other off campus research centres that the student individually selects. We advocate that students conduct primary research.
It is also a time to be critically and analytically reflective about all types of work, and to decide on study plans.

The course promotes individual learning and teaching opportunities by adopting a student-centred ethos.

Elective choices can be made within each year of study. These include practical workshops, lectures, seminars, study visits and international university exchanges.

Assessment feedback is designed to enhance learning. We consider assessment to be part of the learning process, and promote deep learning through encouraging students to reflect and discuss their assessment feedback.

There are two main forms of feedback:

1. Formative feedback for learning.

This is developmental, takes place during a unit and can be verbal or written. It is used to help improve learning and to enhance academic performance.

2. Summative feedback on learning.

This is written and specific to the learning outcomes of a unit and takes place when a unit is completed. It is used to give grades for each unit.

Our feedback is constructively critical, helping determine how the student work might progress academically.

Each unit is assessed separately, and the assessment forms part of the unit. Assessment both provides a measure of your achievement, and also gives you regular feedback on how your learning is developing.

For every unit of your course, we will inform you of what you are expected to learn; what you have to submit; how your work will be assessed; and the deadline for presenting your work for assessment. This is made available through Unit Information, which is on your course blog.

You will receive a final mark for each unit in the form of a percentage, which will be recorded on your formal record of achievement (transcript). Each component of assessment is graded using a notched marking scale, whereby only certain marks are used within each grade. The only marks available within any ten-point band are *2, *5 and *8 (e.g. 62, 65, 68). These marks correspond to a low, mid, and high level of achievement within each grade band.

The University has agreed that, during 2019/20, it will run a pilot project. This will mean that on some courses, one unit at Level 4 will be assessed on a Pass / Fail basis only, with written feedback but no numerical grade. If your course has been selected for the pilot, your Course Leader will tell you this, and the details will be clearly expressed on the Unit Information Sheet.

All learning outcomes must be passed to successfully complete the unit.

On successful completion of your Honours degree course, you will be awarded a degree classification based on your unit marks. The final classification is determined using all unit marks at Levels 5 and 6 using two different algorithms, which are detailed in the HE Student Regulations. If the two algorithms produce different results, you will be awarded the higher class of degree.

If you have joined Level 6 through either the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) route or having completed a Foundation Degree (FdA), the final classification is determined using only your unit marks at Level 6.

For further information on assessment, progression, awards and classifications, please visit https://viewpoint.aub.ac.uk

This year, we invited a number of industry experts professionals into our classes to give our students a valuable insight into Fine Art and industry. Guest lecturers included:

• Otobong Nkanga; Visual artist and performer. Her work explores the tension between exploitative extraction processes and structures of care and repair.
• Jasmina Cibic; Film and installation artist. Her installations explore ‘soft power’ – how political rhetoric is deployed through art and architecture, particularly by the state.
• Ingrid Pollard; Mixed-media artist and researcher. Pollard uses digital, analogue and alternative photographic processes, printmaking, image-text and artist books, installation, video and audio.
• Caragh Thuring; London-based painter, originally from Belgium. Her paintings often examine the speed at which images are consumed, asking how much information is required and how slowly the process of looking can unfold.
• Jennet Thomas; MILM, media and installation artist. Her work can look like an experimental film, children's drama or performance art - it’s a call for complexity that collides genres, experimenting with collective constructions of meaning.
• Sean Edwards; Turner Prize Winner and represented Wales at the Venice Biennale
• Hardeep Pandhal
• Arts Catalyst