module specification

The FA7053 Critical Discourse & Analysis for Art Practice module supports you to identify research questions and methodologies appropriate to your art practice. Through this module’s seminars, lectures and tutorials, you will interrogate and discuss your self-directed art research project. All research for and testing of art practice undertaken during this module is intended as both preparation for and complementary to work on the art project or art studio modules and will explore connections between art research, art thinking and art making with an emphasis on locating critical contexts for study through the practice of art.

The aims of the FA7053 Critical Discourse & Analysis for Art Practice module are for you to:

• develop the necessary postgraduate study and research skills to tackle the intellectual challenges and demands of your postgraduate art project work;
• describe how plurality, diversity and social justice work in the practice of art;
• establish your own independent art research working strategy and articulate the critical context associated with your field of art practice.

The overall aim of the module is to support you to acquire or enhance the necessary conceptual and practical research skills to inform and frame your art practice and to underpin the development of an ambitious major art project by the end of the course.

Available for Study Abroad? NO

The syllabus will begin with an explanation of the FA7053 Critical Discourse & Analysis for Art Practice module’s aims, learning outcomes and assessments. Early on, there will be a session on how plurality, diversity and social justice can work in the practice of art (LO1). Between Weeks 1 and 12, the module will offer four hourlong (minimum) sessions on art research methods and techniques at postgraduate level, including art research planning (LO2); framing research questions in art (LO3); art research methodology (LO4) and research bibliography (LO5). These sessions will be interspersed with others across Weeks 1 to 24. examining and exploring sites of contemporary debate in art, including art's distribution and mediated consumption, reflection on audience response to and impact on art, as well as a session each on commercial, ethical, environmental and legal issues involved in art (LO6).

Scheduled teaching provides the guidance and foundation to ensure that independent study is effective in addressing the module’s learning outcomes and assessment tasks.

In-class activity makes use of varied student-centred approaches such as active, flipped and blended learning, so that a range of learning strategies is deployed, and individual learning styles are accommodated. Information is provided through a range of means and sources to minimise and remove barriers to successful progress through the module. The course team seeks to embed the University’s Education for Social Justice Framework in fostering learning that is enjoyable, accessible, relevant and that takes account of the social and cultural context and capital of its students.

Activities foster peer-to-peer community building and support for learning. Reflective learning is promoted through interim formative feedback points in one-to-ones with tutors, asking students to reflect on their progress, receive help where they identify the opportunity for improvement in learning strategies and outcomes and make recommendations to themselves for future development.

The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-based learning within the curriculum supports postgraduate art students’ personal and career development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress from year to year, to understand the professional environment of their disciplines, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.

By the end of the FA7053 Critical Discourse & Analysis for Art Practice module, you will:

1. analyse and critique how a framework of plurality, diversity and social justice can work in the practice of art;
2. plan and organise the processes of research relevant to your art practice;
3. frame and locate within current debates in contemporary art the central research question(s) of your work;
4. define a research methodology appropriate to your art practice;
5. bibliographise your written output to an agreed academic style;
6. demonstrate a critical understanding of the field of art practice within which you are operating, through written, visual and theoretical analysis of relevant work.

Assessment in this module will be based on two written coursework submissions for summative assessment:

1. a case study (LO1) focusing on plurality, diversity and social justice in the practice of art, in which analysis and critique will be assessed;

2. a developed 5,000-word art research essay (LO6), drawing upon analysis of primary and secondary research sources and using appropriate discourse and research methodology as developed in relation to art studio practice.

The first coursework (case study) will be submitted early in the module as a summative assessment only. The submission is timed for research writing diagnostics early on, so allowing time to address any required or suggested learning in academic writing. The summative mark for this case study is worth 15% of the overall result achieved in the module.

A brief research plan (LO2 - on a template provided) will be handed-in for formative assessment only at the start of Week 3.

The second coursework (essay) will be handed-in two-thirds of the way through the module (W18) in full draft format for formative assessment, before further development, editing and a process of finesse upon a) a self-assessment and b) feedback from tutor, leading to its submission in final form for summative assessment at the end of the module (W25).

Assessors will also measure the final essay for the student’s review of and reference to all literature cited in the essay and for evidence of critical debate between intellectual positions arising from that literature (LO6).

The final essay submission should include additionally the original research plan; research question (LO3); statement of research methodology (LO4) and appropriate and relevant reference lists and bibliographies, as directed (LO5).

The summative mark for the essay is worth 85% of the overall result achieved in the module.

Assessors will use the published table of grade descriptors and assessment criteria to mark your contribution, to a moderated marking scheme as set out in the module’s virtual learning environment (Weblearn) and in accordance with the University’s Academic Regulations.

https://rl.talis.com/3/londonmet/lists/17D623CE-4CB0-20FD-A1F4-609CE077595A.html?embed=1&lang=en&login=1