Bachelor of Visual Arts and Bachelor of Visual Arts/Bachelor of Advanced Studies

Unit outlines will be available through Find a unit outline two weeks before the first day of teaching for 1000-level and 5000-level units, or one week before the first day of teaching for all other units.
 

Visual Arts

Advanced coursework

Advanced Coursework requires the completion of a minimum of 24 credit points, including:
(i) a research, community, industry or entrepreneurship project of at least 12 and up to 36 credit points.
Students completing advanced coursework in this subject area should complete 12 credit points of advanced coursework units of study and 12 credit points of advanced coursework project units of study.

Advanced coursework units of study

CAVA4001 Art Writing and Artists

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Assessment: 1x1000wd art review (20%), 1x10min (2000wd equivalent) blog and podcast (30%), 1x3000wd journal article/conference paper (50%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit of study introduces you to the language of art through venue and media publications created for the dissemination, critique and promotion of contemporary art. We will critically examine different forms of contemporary writing for the arts including the journal article, exhibition catalogue, online blogging, press releases, reviews, conference papers, and anthology chapters to discover the various structures of description and argument used and how they change across media publications. Through practical workshops, group critiques and individual tasks you will develop your capacity to produce effective writing for eventual publication in the field of contemporary art.
Textbooks
Refer to the unit of study outline https://www.sydney.edu.au/units
CAVA4002 Professional Arts Practice

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week Assessment: 1x1000wd proposal document (20%), 1x2000wd equivalent case study documentation/folio (30%), 1x3000wd fieldwork report (50%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit locates your arts practice in a professional context. In a series of workshops, you will develop and apply strategies fundamental to visual arts business practice, covering topics such as arts law, copyright, contracts, photographing work, writing exhibition proposals, grant applications and curriculum vitae, and defining a market. You will consider how you want to present yourself publicly as an artist, establishing the foundation for a sustainable career, with a strong business ethic enhancing and extending your creative working life. In the latter half of the semester, you will undertake fieldwork in an arts institution of your choice supported by feedback from your lecturers.
CAVA4003 Art making and Artworks

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Assessment: 1x1000wd art review (20%), 1x5000wd equivalent folio of artwork (80%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
In this unit of study, you will develop a self-directed practice-led visual art project in tandem with a close critique of international artworks created for contemporary art events. We will explore and critique political themes, methods and conceptual approaches that contemporary artists use to suggest the diversity of global contemporary art and life. As well as the BVA/BAS, this unit would be an ideal project for honours students wishing to do a discrete project outside their major project. If you are enrolled in CAHO4006, your work for this unit of study will be a separate supplementary studio project.
SLAM4003 Meaning in the Anthropocene

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week or equivalent Prerequisites: ARHT3998 or ARHT3999 or ARIN3998 or ARIN3999 or CAEL3998 or CAEL3999 or ENGL3998 or ENGL3999 or FILM3998 or FILM3999 or LNGS3998 or LNGS3999 or PRFM3998 or PRFM3999 or 144 credit points in the Bachelor of Visual Arts or HSTY3998 or HSTY3999 or ANHS3998 or ANHS3999 or GCST3998 or GCST3999 or ARCO3998 or ARCO3999 or PHIL3998 or PHIL3999 Assessment: 1x2000wd short essay (40%), 1x4000wd or equivalent research project: essay or critical creative work (60%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit focuses on key themes for understanding meaning in the Anthropocene, an age of human planetary impact: human-nature relations, social and environmental activism. Students will learn how the various disciplines in the School of Literature, Art and Media engage with the Anthropocene in literary, visual, digital and performative modes. Collaborating with the Sydney Environment Institute, the unit underscores the contribution of the arts to the ethics and aesthetics of meaning in an age of global economic crisis. This unit is team-taught and assessment will accommodate a student's research interests.
SLAM4004 Working the Arts and Humanities

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: ARHT3998 or ARHT3999 or ARIN3998 or ARIN3999 or CAEL3998 or CAEL3999 or ENGL3998 or ENGL3999 or FILM3998 or FILM3999 or LNGS3998 or LNGS3999 or PRFM3998 or PRFM3999 or 144 credit points in the Bachelor of Visual Arts or HSTY3998 or HSTY3999 or ANHS3998 or ANHS3999 or GCST3998 or GCST3999 or ARCO3998 or ARCO3999 or PHIL3998 or PHIL3999 Assessment: 1x2000wd short essay (40%),1x4000wd or equivalent major project: essay or appropriate creative work (60%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
We will explore how we might think about 'work' in the arts and humanities. First: works of art, culture, literature, film. What is a work of art? How do works ‘work’? How do they function? Second, labour in the humanities and arts: the industrial conditions cultural work in contemporary conditions of precarity and uberisation? Third, how the arts and humanities are put to work. What values are associated with these fields, to the labour involved? How are the knowledges generated in the arts and humanities put to use, appropriated, marginalised, dismissed? The unit is team taught and accessible to students from diverse backgrounds; assessment tailored to student’s research interests.

Advanced coursework project units of study

SLAM4001 SLAM Project: Pasts, Presents, Futures A

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: ARHT3998 or ARHT3999 or ARIN3998 or ARIN3999 or FILM3998 or FILM3999 or LNGS3998 or LNGS3999 or PRFM3998 or PRFM3999 or ENGL3998 or ENGL3999 or CAEL3998 or CAEL3999 or 144 credit points in the Bachelor of Visual Arts Assessment: 1x1500wd short essay (25%), 1x1500wd project proposal (25%), 1x1500wd equivalent project portfolio (25%), 1x1500wd equivalent research proposal presentation (25%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
Note: Department permission required for enrolment
Each student will develop, in consultation with their teacher, a project involving the application of contemporary scholarship in their discipline to a question arising within their disciplinary specialisation, for example: issues concerned with cultural, institutional or digital archives (with links to Fisher Library or other libraries/online data repositories/community organisations); the creation and development of contemporary practice[s]; or how cultural practices, from arts-based work through to the practice of language, address futures, dystopian, utopian or otherwise.
SLAM4002 SLAM Project: Pasts, Presents, Futures B

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: SLAM4001 Assessment: 1x4500wd portfolio (75%), 1x1500wd equivalent presentations (25%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Supervision
Each student will complete, in consultation with their teacher, a project involving the application of contemporary scholarship in their discipline to a question arising within their disciplinary specialisation, for example: issues concerned with cultural, institutional or digital archives (with links to Fisher Library or other libraries/online data repositories/community organisations); the creation and development of contemporary practice[s]; or how cultural practices, from arts-based work through to the practice of language, address futures, dystopian, utopian or otherwise.
FASS4901 Advanced Industry and Community Project A

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Refer to the unit of study outline https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Intensive February,Intensive July Classes: Refer to the unit of study outline https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Corequisites: FASS4902 Assumed knowledge: Depth of knowledge in at least one discipline (major) Assessment: Refer to the unit of study outline https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Practical field work: Minimal practical field work is expected but requirements will vary depending on the project, and may include a period of mobility or immersion in a community or industry setting. Mode of delivery: Block mode
This unit allows students to work collaboratively in interdisciplinary teams on complex "real world" problems under a theme developed in collaboration with industry and community partners. Briefed by the partners and guided by project supervisors, students use systems thinking approaches to design their own projects and engage in self-directed inquiry-based research to provide final recommendations. In this unit, students will develop their own professional identity through participation in communities of practice and reflective practice, together with an in-depth understanding of specific project-related matters. This experience will equip students with an agile mindset and skillset that will assist them to successfully navigate dynamic future environments and career paths. See the ICPU website for further information here:
https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/industry-and-community-projects/4000-level-projects.html
FASS4902 Advanced Industry and Community Project B

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Refer to the unit of study outline https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: Refer to the unit of study outline https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Corequisites: FASS4901 Assumed knowledge: Depth of knowledge in at least one discipline (major) Assessment: Refer to the unit of study outline https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Practical field work: Minimal practical field work is expected but requirements will vary depending on the project, and may include a period of mobility or immersion in a community or industry setting Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit allows students to work collaboratively in interdisciplinary teams on complex "real world" problems under a theme developed in collaboration with industry and community partners. Briefed by the partners and guided by project supervisors, students use systems thinking approaches to design their own projects and engage in self-directed inquiry-based research to provide final recommendations. In this unit, students will develop their own professional identity through participation in communities of practice and reflective practice, together with an in-depth understanding of specific project-related matters. This experience will equip students with an agile mindset and skillset that will assist them to successfully navigate dynamic future environments and career paths. See the ICPU website for further information here:
https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/industry-and-community-projects/4000-level-projects.html