module specification

For many creative practitioners, competition entry or exhibition are the crucial, final aspects of professional dissemination and practice: a fulfilment of practice objectives – aesthetic, intellectual, ethical ¬– and the realisation of a long period of research and development in the studio. The moment of submission also provides critical debate and reception, commercial reward, and future career opportunities.

This module requires you to undertake a researched, targeted exhibition or competition entry, presenting work (developed within your major project) in a professional manner, for public reception. You will apply your understanding of the codes and conventions of competition or exhibition, contemporary curatorial practice, editorial and competitor approaches within a public exhibition. This will represent your independent critical questioning of academic learning and professional processes.

The module demands a creative and disciplined approach to collaboration with relevant stakeholders and external partners. You may prepare for professional practice and understanding and participation in exhibition and competition through work placement in a suitable company. This module develops your ‘learning for work’. Within the module, you will experience work-related learning through live project set up and realisation or placement. You will refine a range of transferable skills in communication, management, research and analysis and are encouraged to reflect and report on the work-relevant skills you develop throughout. These skills are both desirable and advantageous for all graduates and include (for example): action planning, contribution to professional meetings, entrepreneurship, goal setting, negotiating, networking, project management, self-appraisal, team working.

Projects will develop and display effective professional presentation techniques and curatorial approaches for the dissemination of individual practice in live industry specific contexts. The final presentation should reflect your professional, creative and intellectual identity in preparation for entry to the workplace. The exhibition or competition entry or outcome of placement may be individual or as part of a collaborative venture.

Pass & Completion of Prior Level

The module seeks to enable you to:

• Demonstrate confidence and professionalism in preparation, management, selection and contextualisation of practice, preparing and representing final project work for competition or exhibition, using appropriate skills in communication, entrepreneurship and critical persuasion
• Understand how relevant professional organisations and independent practitioners operate in the context of competition or exhibition through conceptualising, planning, fundraising, build and operation
• Develop and provide evidence of the knowledge and skills needed to fulfil the entry and self-promotion objectives of the module in a professional manner, in the process realizing the research aims of the brief and demonstrating a mature creative practice
• Assess the impact and effectiveness of the approaches and techniques you employ, forming a strategy for publication and dissemination of your practice and professional career
• Plan, prepare and execute a professional presentation in appropriate intellectual, institutional and aesthetic contexts, reframing and improving as necessary.
• Respond critically and maturely to tutorial feedback and guidance, affording opportunity for contextualisation and improvement of the representation of honours-level project work.

Through self-initiated individual and/or group projects, students will develop knowledge and experience of:
• primary and secondary case study research
• professional networking
• working with teams in a professional context
• professional communication and dissemination skills
• negotiation, collaboration and enterprise development
• regular presentation of progress and findings
• development of a career plan from reflection on your research and experience
• presentation skills within related publications
• exhibition practice research
• competition strategy
• subject-specific curatorial strategies
• exhibition and competition concept development
• public exhibition management, costing, planning and fundraising
• strategies for publicising exhibition events
• analysis of own and other exhibition outcomes

Projects encompass and utilise a range of learning opportunities, such as:
• lectures, seminars and tutorials
• input from industry professionals
• research & development field-trips
• work placements
• collaborative study through blended learning
• live project opportunities
• event design and construction
• teamwork with colleagues and partners
• self & peer review, critique and analysis
• career planning and related individual material for personal development planning
• professional exhibition of graduate-standard images, artefacts and texts of your own devising

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding
Construct and carry out investigative research into competition or exhibition practice in your professional field and develop effective proposals for the exhibition, publication and dissemination of your work

Cognitive Intellectual Skills
Devise methods for measuring the impact of your strategy and application, and plan for increasing effectiveness

Transferable Skills
Apply to a professional standard the necessary skills for competition or exhibition entry, design, curation, construction, reframing, installation, specification and publication in your discipline

Subject Specific Practical Skills
Position your practice intent within that of your contemporaries and articulate your concept confidently within professional presentation conventions

You will produce a coherent presentation of your placement, competition or exhibition experience, independent research development and findings, together with a critical evaluation of your successes and opportunities for development.

This module will formatively assess the research, planning, critical audience analysis and reflective diary at the end of each phase. The satisfactory completion of continuing independent studentship and professional practice will be continuously monitored and forms a part of the assessment requirements for the module. Precise requirements for the analysis, diary and studentship will be stated in the brief.

The final mark awarded at the end of the module will assess a range of practical outcomes, to include a contextualizing portfolio, reflective diary and evidence of supporting research. Precise requirements will be stipulated in the module guide. Work must be carefully organised and presented to indicate the development of work and the content clearly labeled. Students must attend timetabled sessions.

Bendon, H. (2000) A Place for Ambiguity: Articulating Practice as Research, Journal of Media Practice, 2005, Vol. 6, Issue 3.
Clarke, A (2011) Design Anthropology: Object Culture in the 21st Century, Springer.
Macdonald, S (ed) (1997) Politics of Display, Routledge
Schouwenberg, L and Staal, G (eds) (2008) House of Concepts: Design Academy Eindhoven, Frame.
Stiles, K (ed.) (1996) Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art; A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings, University of California Press
Tilley, C et al (eds.) (2006) Handbook of Material Culture, Sage.

Additionally texts and other reference materials will be identified by studio tutors annually that support a
specific studio theme.