The programme consists of a set of required courses and a number of elective courses within three concentrations: Studio and Media Arts, Craft and Design, and Visual Arts Studies.  It provides students with solid foundations in their personal choice of areas including drawing, painting, Chinese arts, lens-based media and sound, graphic book, experimental imaging, sculpture, glass, ceramics, wearables, body as interface, objects and environments, art history and theory, visual and material culture.

The courses in the programme emphasize creativity, versatility, and intelligence.  The underlying philosophy is rooted in the idea of the ever-shifting characteristic of artistic production in the context of society.  Studio teaching is conducted through a combination of workshops, and individual and group tutorials, and is founded on the belief that art and design practice is fundamentally a social phenomenon.  The aim of the staff and students is to participate in social interaction and discussion through visual arts.

The BA (Hons) in Visual Arts-programme consists of Major Courses that are put together to provide specific education in the Visual Arts, and General Education courses intended to broaden the students’ horizon beyond the limitations of only one programme-area in order to achieve a holistic education of the student.

The Major Courses are distinguished into a set of Required Courses and a number of Elective Courses, which the students may choose from the courses offered within the programme within the limits set by these regulations.

In general the BA (Hons) in Visual Arts programme (4-year) requires all its students to attend six Required Courses (Level I and II) during their first two years at the AVA that provide all students with a comprehensive introduction into the practice of visual arts as well as art history and theory.

To expand the knowledge and skills of the students in their second year, they may choose a selection of Elective Courses (Level II) based on their personal interests.  In their third year the students are expected to develop more depth in three subject areas by choosing advanced courses (Level III) from “clusters”, to which the Level II courses they have taken before are pre-requisite.  In Year IV of their studies the students then may practise their skills in a required interdisciplinary research project (Level IV), before they will showcase their achievement of the graduate attributes in the Honours Project.

Within this outlined structure the BA (Hons) in Visual Arts programme is offered in three concentrations differentiated as Studio and Media Arts, Craft and Design and Visual Arts Studies.

Studio and Media Arts
A concentration in Studio and Media Arts allows the student to focus his endeavours in traditional studio arts and/or contemporary media arts, aiming to generate meaning through aesthetic and/or intellectual concepts, beyond a merely functional approach.  It indicates the student’s ability to work in areas related to the fine arts—as a practising artist—to teach related areas or take on some administrative positions from the area.

Craft and Design
Craft and design both have the physical work-result at the centre of their disciplines.  Be it a hand-made artefact or a mass-produced industry product, the essence of the result is in its physicality. Because of this, concepts of functionality, usability, sustainability, but also consideration of production processes, market-demand and/or general benefits play an increasingly important role to the visual artist.  Completion of this concentration indicates the student’s ability to work as designer or artisan, to teach in this area, and/or to take on administrative positions related to the area.

Visual Arts Studies
A concentration in Visual Arts Studies offers the student a range of theoretical and historical approaches to the visual arts with a focus on the notion of public experience and education in and about the visual arts through new creative strategies.  A student completing this concentration will strive to work in arts administration for governmental and non-governmental organisations, to write about visual arts as a journalist or critic, or to attempt a career in art direction or curation.