Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Visual Arts (4-year)
Programme Director: Mr Peter Benz
 

The programme is distinguished into a set of required courses and a number of elective courses with three concentrations: Studio and Media Arts, Craft and Design, and Visual Arts Studies. It provides students with solid studio art training and concepts in art history and theory including drawing, painting, Chinese arts, lens-based media and sound, graphic art, experimental imaging, sculpture, glass, ceramics, wearables, body, 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.

 
In accordance with the institutional philosophy of the Academy of Visual Arts the aims of the BA (Hons) in Visual Arts programme are:
   
1. To nurture creative talents with new ideas, inspiration, and professionalism;
2. To be an active part of the growing creative and cultural sectors in the region, through institutional participation as well as through the contributions of AVA's graduates and students;
3. To be and remain the best Visual Arts degree programmes in the region; and
4. To further extend AVA's and HKBU's international reputation by producing cutting-edge artistic works and visual arts research.
 
Based on these aims the objectives of the BA (Hons) in Visual Arts programme are:
   
1. To provide solid training in visual arts skills and techniques, and to familiarize AVA's students with contemporary concepts and approaches of the field;
2. To equip AVA's students with scholarly skills and abilities at academic level, and thus enabled them to seek further academic education in graduate and postgraduate studies;
3. To lead our students to develop their own artistic profile according to their interests, enabling them to explore, develop and realize creative ideas in response to externally set, and self-generated projects; and
4. To nurture well-balanced, confident graduate personalities, whose personal and professional conduct is based on the values of a civilized society, and the appreciation of culture as a major foundation of our way of living.
 

The BA (Hons) in Visual Arts-programme (4 years) consists of Major Courses (60 credit-units) that are put together to provide specific education in the Visual Arts, and General Education Courses (68 credit-units) intended to broaden the students' horizon beyond the limitations of only one programme-area, and to achieve a holistic education of the student.

The Major Courses are distinguished into a set of Required Courses (18 units) and a number of Elective Courses (42 units), which the students may choose from the courses offered within the programme within the limits set by these regulations.

 
The principal structure of the BA curriculum therefore appears as follows:
 
Major 60 units
Required Courses (18 units)  
Elective Courses (42 units)  
General Education Courses 68 units
¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w
128 units

 

In general the BA (Hons) in Visual Arts programme (4 years) requires all its students to attend two Required Courses (Level I) during their first year at the Academy that provide all students with a comprehensive introduction into the practice of visual arts.

To expand the knowledge and skills of the students in their second year, they may then 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 an 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 pragramme is offered in three concentrations differentiated as Studio and Media Arts, Craft and Design and Visul 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.

 
Requirements
 
Major Required Courses 18 units
  VART 1005 Introduction to Visual Arts I 3 units
  VART 1006 Introduction to Visual Arts II 3 units
  VART 2305 Introduction to Western Art 3 units
  VART 2306 Introduction to Chinese Art 3 units
  VART 4055 Honours Project 6 units
 
Major Elective Courses 42 units
  Studio & Media Arts (SMA)
  Drawing & Painting:
  VART 2115 Drawing: Visual Thinking & Observation 3 units
  VART 2116 Painting: Image & Interpretation 3 units
  VART 3105 Special Topics in Studio & Media Arts (Drawing & Painting) 3 units
  VART 3115 Drawing: Inquiry & Experimentation 3 units
  VART 3116 Painting: Expression & Exploration 3 units
  Chinese Arts: 3 units
  VART 2125 Visual Literacy in Chinese Painting 3 units
  VART 2126 Chinese Word as Image 3 units
  VART 3106 Special Topics in Studio & Media Arts (Chinese Arts) 3 units
  VART 3125 Convention & Innovation in Chinese Painting 3 units
  VART 3126 Chinese Seal Engraving: The Expressive Identity 3 units
  Lens-based Media: 3 units
  VART 2135 Looking through the Lens 3 units
  VART 2136 Sound: The Basics. 3 units
  VART 3107 Special Topics in Studio & Meida Arts (Lens-based Media) 3 units
  VART 3135 Independent Music Video 3 units
  VART 3136 Experiments in Moving Image 3 units
  VART 3137 Constructed Reality 3 units
  Sculpture: 3 units
  VART 2145 Sculpture: Materials & Processes 3 units
  VART 2146 Intersculpt 3 units
  VART 3145 Sculpture: Form & Applications 3 units
  VART 3146 Installation Art 3 units
  VART 3147 Public Art 3 units
  VART 3195 Special Topics in Studio & Media Arts (sculpture) 3 units
  Body: 3 units
  VART 2155 Bodyscape 3 units
  VART 3155 Bodily Perception in Artistic Practice 3 units
  VART 3156 Embodied Interaction 3 units
  VART 3157 Virtual Touch 3 units
  VART 3196 Special Topics in Studio & Media Arts (Body) 3 units
  Craft & Design (CD) 3 units
  Graphic Book: 3 units
  VART 2215 Typography 3 units
  VART 2216 Graphics Storytelling 3 units
  VART 3205 Special Topics in Craft & Design (Graphic Book) 3 units
  VART 3215 Picture Book 3 units
  VART 3216 Cover to Cover 3 units
  Experimental Imaging: 3 units
  VART 2225 Experimental Illustration 3 units
  VART 3206 Special Topics in Craft & Design (Experimental Imaging) 3 units
  VART 3225 Screenprinting & Lithographic Printmaking 3 units
  VART 3226 Relief & Intaglio Printmaking 3 units
  VART 3227 Evolutionary Graphics 3 units
  Glass & Ceramics: 3 units
  VART 2235 From Liquid to Solid: The Art of Glass Blowing 3 units
  VART 2236 Ceramic Art: From Pinched Pot to Sculptural From 3 units
  VART 3207 Special Topics in Craft & Design (Glass & Ceramics) 3 units
  VART 3235 From Zero Space to Infinite Dimension: The Art of Glass Casting 3 units
  VART 3236 From Object to Installation: The Art of Glass Kiln-Forming 3 units
  VART 3237 Creative Ceramics: Concept & Process 3 units
  Wearables:
  VART 2245 Wearables 3 units
  VART 2246 Small Metal Jewellery 3 units
  VART 3245 Second Skin 3 units
  VART 3246 Self-identity through Jewellery 3 units
  VART 3295 Special Topics in Craft & Design (Wearables) 3 units
  Objects & Environment: 3 units
  VART 2255 Space & Site 3 units
  VART 2256 Product Design 3 units
  VART 3255 Exhibits & Displays 3 units
  VART 3256 Sustainable Design 3 units
  VART 3296 Special Topics in Craft & Design (Objects & Environment) 3 units
  Visual Arts Studies (VAS) 3 units
  Art History & Theory: 3 units
  VART 2315 Writing in Art & Culture 3 units
  VART 3305 Special Topics in Visual Arts Studies (Art History & Theory) 3 units
  VART 3315 Concepts in Contemporary Art 3 units
  VART 3316 Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Arts History 3 units
  VART 3317 Visual Arts & Modernity 3 units
  Chinese Art Studies: 3 units
  VART 2325 Arts of Asia 3 units
  VART 3306 Special Topics in Visual Arts Studies (Chinese Arts Studies) 3 units
  VART 3325 Contemporary Vision in Chinese Art Practice 3 units
  VART 3326 Hong Kong Arts 3 units
  VART 3327 Hong Kong Craft: Tradition & Transformation 3 units
  Visual & Material Culture: 3 units
  VART 2335 Material Culture & Collections 3 units
  VART 3307 Special Topics in Visual Arts Studies (Visual & Material Culture) 3 units
  VART 3335 Museum Studies 3 units
  VART 3336 Exhibition & Art Markets 3 units
  VART 3337 Visual Anthropology 3 units
  Cross Cluster Courses: 3 units
  VART 3005 Visual Art Internship 3 units
  VART 4015 Somewhere: The Spatial Turn 3 units
  VART 4025 Sometime: Past/Present/Future 3 units
  VART 4035 Something: Object to Thing 3 units
  VART 4045 Somebody: From Self to Others 3 units
General Education 38 units
Electives 30 units
        ¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w¢w
        128 units
 
 
 
©2012 Hong Kong Baptist University
Source: Calendar/Bulletin 2012-2013
Last modified: August 2012