VA5009 - Identities

The learning strategies on this module include:

- Seminars
- One-on-one and group studio tutorials
- Presentation of art and research
- Self-directed creative inquiry
- Peer-led discussions
- Excursions, such as to exhibitions or artist studios

Teaching materials may include examination of artwork in museum or gallery settings, archives, readings, film screenings, and more.

You are supported with studio provision and access to specialist technical facilities, materials, and resource areas. Technical facilities include the wood and casting workshops, the print studio, the Mac lab and digital print facility, and the darkrooms and digital photographic studios. You have access to specialist materials in all workshop areas, and our resource areas include equipment stores, galleries, and project spaces. You have twenty-four-hour access to the university library.

You are supported by an academic team, which teaches you across your various modules, a designated studio tutor to guide you on the development of your study, and a personal tutor to aid your wellbeing and provide general support. Your learning is mapped out for you in a programme guide given to you at the start of the semester that includes guidance notes and key dates for the semester to help you organise and plan your time. Teaching materials, notices and guidance are made available to you through our online electronic learning portal, which is accessible online both on campus and externally. You will have a university email that we contact you through, and all course timetabling is published in your online timetable. To support you we provide you with on-going formative feedback through the teaching you receive, and ask you to write and submit a self-evaluation review reflecting on your own progress against the module learning outcomes.

At the start of the programme, you will receive induction, which includes training and instruction in health and safety, ethics, and safe working practices in the use of the studio, workshops, and resource areas.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

Knowledge & Understanding:

1. The production of artwork that demonstrates connections between individual interests and creative research.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

2. The evidencing of emerging critical decision-making in relation to research and production.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

3. The development and application of transferable skills linked to self-organisation, art world experiences, and individual curiosity

Summative Assessment (100%):

You will be tasked with a presentation/exhibition of works evidencing the evolution of your independent studio practice developed throughout the semester, and the production of a supporting research file.

Summative Assessment Feedback:
You will receive verbal feedback from your studio tutor within seven days of the submission deadline. Feedback is individual and provided in the context of the assessment criteria given to you at the start of the semester in the module guide. Written feedback is delivered within 20 working days via the eLearning Portal.

Formative Assessment:
To prepare you successfully to undertake the summative assessment(s) on this module, formative assessments will be set by the module team. These may take the form of in-class tasks or projects, developmental activities undertaken between classes, or learning exercises/activities set over a longer period. Feedback (written and/or oral) will be provided to help you learn from, reflect on, and develop in light of these formative assessments.

MLOs: The components test all MLOs.

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Identities have long informed creative thought and processes. Artists today draw on various political and social positionalities to address complex and critical issues through contemporary art. With an emphasis on intersectional and global perspectives, this module examines questions of identity construction and representation through, but not limited to, race, gender, sexuality, and class. Teaching methods include seminars, one-on-one tutorials, exhibition visits, and access to learning resources that encourage students to contextualise and situate their practice and theoretical enquiries in response to current discourses in the field. Challenging historical and dominant narratives of identity that have often framed diverse people and communities based on colonial or nationalist agendas, the students are encouraged to dialogically engage in individual and collaborative studio investigations that trouble hegemonic ideologies and forefront the margins.