Tuesday, 8 June 2021

[LAUIL602] Notes from Conversation with MA Fine Art David Steans

Module Overview of First Year as Discussed in our Conversation:



Overview of the MA Fine Art modules from this year with full permission from David who sent these across to my email


Notes from our Conversation:

• Write statement. Admissions deals with process. Submit and apply. Offered place. RPL Recognition of Prior Learning. We’re having that convo now. Admissions would see illustration as a related course to Fine Art. Emphasis on Professional Practice. Illustration skills are transferrable. 

• Do you want to develop your Fine Art practice? 

• In terms of the difference between disciplines. MA Fine Art - theoretical. No hierarchy or visual criteria. No "that looks like illustration more than it does fine art." It is about ambitions for practice. We have students who work in a wide range of ways. Painters and drawers and video and performance. Overlaps disciplinary boundaries. Design practice. We assume you want to be a practicing artist. Very self-directed. More self-directed. Distinction to MA Fine Art. We don’t set briefs, we don't set themes. The expectation is that you hold responsibility and developing it. We try to develop it as far as it can get. 

• As long as you engage with the course, anything you make is fine. it doesn’t have to be your ambition to be an artist afterwards.

• All open-mode.

• The course is very dialogue-based. Your other course mates are a resource. Social. Participate fully. When we come together fully as a group, independent group activities. Supported by supervisor. Probably stick with you.

• See me (David) every week. Core sessions. 1:1 supervision. Start of year set amount of years allocated. Schedule at mutual convenience.

• In-depth ongoing discussion who gets to know your work. Set you tasks. Asks what you want from the sessions. Bringing other voices in. System works really well.

• Expected to be in one day a week. Expectation to build and develop your practice on your own. Post-grad space based around discussion, seminars, social space. Can work up there and do stuff up there in the social space but it is not designed to hold many people and is quite a "dirty" studio space as it were. It isn't like what you are used to as an illustration student. IT's quite a comfortable space - more getting together and dialogue. Presentations and kitted out for that.

• Floor above the library nice build to it.

• Won’t be allocated any individual studio space. Course is based around post-studio practice. A lot of artists may have studios established already. Resources better spent on staff and elsewhere. One of the things we can help is ideal situation with working.

• At the start it may seem abstract. Challenge of the course is to develop and build and make a productive schedule for yourself. Obligations for yourself. Eye on your project management. Self directed. There is enough structure to not disappear and fall off the grid. Enough space to develop. We are very clear about targets and what is expected and the demand of the modules themselves and to push self-directness. Fulfil requirements.

• Visiting practitioners. Collaborations. Core sessions, students from all post-grad courses. MA Fine Art - Illustration - Graphic Design. Collaboration, social.

• Connection with BA Fine Art. Access to their visiting professionals. Student-led symposium. 

• Keen to build up exciting relationships A lot of presentations across the modules, even the practical modules, a written component. Not tons of essays but all of the submissions are digital. 

• We use writing a lot as a reference. You do a lot of the staging of your own development. 

• You have to apply. Write proposals. Writing emails. You need a solid skill base in presenting, documenting, in a digital audience. Dissertation itself is the largest writing module 6-8,000 words. The rest of the modules are 2,000 words. Criteria quite open and loose. Up to you to interpret. Prerecorded, PDFs, publications. We don’t expect the work to be digital but it has to be submitted digitally.

• You come out of the other end rather skilled.

• Pathways: Full time pathway for one year. Part-time pathway for 2 years.

• Part Time - tend to go to all sessions. Students live all over the place with most in the Yorkshire region. Come in to see one another. Dialogue. Takes a few weeks or month or two to establish as a way of working.

• Part Time - 3 modules in the first year. 2 modules in second year.

Full Time - Full on an intense.

• LAU discount? 

• Full time is very intensive but it is amazing how much the students learn. There are other factors: working patterns. Accommodation.With part time course you have twice as long. Making full use of the workshops. More measured. 

• There's an expectation to wait between to wait between BA and MA. 

• Everything is geared towards a resolution. I benefitted from having a break.-

• We have people doing the course from Sheffield and York. Half the course live in Yorkshire, the other half dotted around the UK. You only really have one day that you have to be in.

• Provides that extra flexibility. 

• Get in touch with admissions about the process, when is the cut-off point, etc. When to see an application by.

• Dissertation to be submitted at the end of the first year

• 5 modules altogether make up the Masters programme. Three "specialist" modules - investigative period of time - body of work - as modules proceed they have different emphasis - not thematic - and 2 "core" modules - practice and research. Run by Sarah Taylor. Shelia Gaffney. Take those core modules with students across post-grad.

• Series of presentations. Write a report about finding a research context for your work.

• 2nd core module is dissertation.

• First year - 701 702 Dissertation The whole year to do those 3 modules.

• Year 2. Remaining modules.

• The current crop of students are excited to submit that dissertation in July and get rid of it and then focus on their practical modules in Year 8. They then know their practice, course mates, students who are exhibiting at this time.

 • Table being sent of overview of how the overview and full-time and pastime and pastime path time.

• Brief as you arrive.

• Post grad officer. Lots of efforts put into opportunities and networking. Stuf coming through me as and when. Bring in professionals. Opportunities.

• No live briefs at the moments. Are trying to establish an MA exhibition exhibition separate from the uni one.

• It’s still a new course in its second year. Building on it constantly.

• Some of the opportunities and briefs come from the student body as well. Lots of emphasis on your cohort as a group and resource. What you do together.

• Those opportunities that filter through at BA also filter through the MA creative practice, Post graduate area


ETA: David got back in touch with me to provide the overview of the first year of the module layout (at the top of the blog post)


Reflection:

• I have arrived at a much different place in my practice than when I began.the BA (Hons) Illustration course, that needs further developing to continue to be engaging.

• I started to prepare and make my own canvas frames with help that I enjoyed doing. There's a sense of graft and authenticity about working with raw materials right from the beginning to create the foundation.

• The idea of the Master beings founded upon open dialogue both intrigues me and makes me nervous. I avoided many of my crits this year for a number of reasons - mostly trauma-related of being so isolated without my Guide Dog. I also struggle to focus and communicate properly since I witnessed my mum have a severe stroke and both of my retinas detached in 2018. I can't offer much visual critique in a quick time-frame, making me feel like an inadequate student. On the one hand, there will be a range of new people to talk to from all backgrounds, akin to Access to HE and that excites me. On the other, I have fears about not being accepted into a cohort because of my disability like in my BA. How will engagement from dialogue be measured?

• The lack of studio space concerns me and will be something I need to investigate further, especially if I am to be making my own canvases of varying dimensions. Duke Studios and Patrick Studios offer space to graduates but there is limited availability and I imagine many people are gunning for places. 

• Accommodation is a concern  too and will be something I need to look into. I'm unsure of whether I want to go back into student accommodation after my experience this past year. The place I have stayed with is usually quiet with lovely students, but the pandemic brought the worst out in everyone in terms of noise nuisance levels.

• I will need to apply for a Masters Loan.

• There wasn't enough time this year to progress directly from BA to MA, with all of the above factors to consider of funding, accommodation, studio space, and finishing my BA into early August. I will take a year out to go back home and look after my mum and rest after the work I have done in a short space of time to complete BA Illustration. I can spend any free time getting the wheels in motion with these elements.

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