VPR2011 - Research practices advanced - 2019

Research Practices Advanced is a core unit in the Visual Arts sequence, and is the first of the two second year units. This unit is a practice driven, workshop based unit which develops a variety of methodologies and their contribution to a research practice in visual culture. It is designed to further develop, challenge and expand how students think about making artwork and to synthesise research interests, building on VPR1113. A series of individual and collaborative exercises and projects are presented to extend and further foster creative research skills and consolidate students' material skills. The main emphasis of this class is to demonstrate how thinking operates through making. Fabrication processes in the workshop can be in any medium from across two- and/or three-dimensional works, to sound and performance. The aim of these exercises is to further extend each student's capacity for production, creating a pool of ideas, strategies, forms and processes for students to draw on and develop as they progress through the course. Teaching methodology involves critical dialogue, classroom discussion and peer review. This unit presents a broad range of approaches to contemporary art and its institutions for those wishing to work in the arts industry as artists, curators, arts writers, educators or practitioners. Research Practices encourages an experimental approach to conceptual, material and public outcomes. Safe and sustainable approaches to fabrication and materials are core values in the unit.

Upon successful completion of this unit students will be able to:

1. Initiate a broad range of conceptual and analytical approaches to projects;
2. Experiment with a variety of materials and technical approaches in relation to emerging research questions;
3. Undertake interdisciplinary, collaborative or curatorial approaches in contemporary visual art practices that are consistent with their emerging research questions;
4. Synthesise strategies of observation, analysis, experimentation and critique within a developmental process where deemed appropriate to respond to various assigned presentation contexts;
5. Contextualise through writing their work and the work of others and its theoretical and material rationale within the field of contemporary visual art;
6. Understand and apply the rules of occupational health and safety appropriate to sustained independent studio practice and in order to collaborate safely with peers.

100% in-semester assessment

12 hours per week including 4 contact hours plus 8 hours of independent study and studio practice.

See also Unit timetable information