Module VISU1031: Gallery 101: Designing an Art Exhibition

Department: Modern Languages and Cultures (Visual)

VISU1031: Gallery 101: Designing an Art Exhibition

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To encourage skills of visual analysis and visual communication through the medium of exhibitions.
• To support visual arts learning on the VA 01 & VA 02 programmes on The Still and Moving Image.

Content

• Gallery 101 is a level 1 module that extends the learning of students enrolled on the VA01 and VA02 programmes introducing the study of visual culture and the still and moving image. Gallery 101 invites students to develop their knowledge and understanding of the visual arts, as well as their presentation and communication skills by designing a virtual art exhibition.
• The student will focus their exhibition project either upon an artist, a group, a style, a theme or a critical idea that they have studied or that is of interest to them. The exhibition theme that is chosen must be ‘problematised’: the student must design an argument in relation to the subject in hand. The exhibition idea will spring from this basis. This is the purpose of any exhibition. A good exhibition is one that negotiates an argument or a particular view through the choice of exhibits and through their ‘hang’ (i.e. through the relationships established between the exhibits by the way they are placed in relation to one another in the gallery space). In other words the student is invited to negotiate an argument, not through words on paper, but through artistic images.
• In order to complete the task the students are provided with a virtual gallery space in which to hang and arrange exhibits. They will have to take account of lighting, security, conservation issues, layout of rooms and use of space. This aspect of the module involves a problem-based learning approach that demands elegant and creative solutions to the disjuncture between what the student wants to do in theory and what is possible in practice. The virtual gallery space is based upon that of the University’s own exhibition centre in the Old Library building on Palace Green.
• The student will follow a taught programme which considers the history and nature of exhibitions, the ways in which exhibitions presents arguments, the hanging of exhibitions, conservation issues, labelling, critical curatorship and other issues germane to exhibition organisation.
• The module develops a body of professional skills which will prepare the student for entry to future modules such as VISU2011: Introduction to Museums and Curating as well as preparing them for the world of work in Museums and Galleries.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will develop and extend their learning in the visual arts
• Students will appreciate the role of critical discourse in relation to the visual arts
• Students will learn about the theory of exhibition organisation and design
• Students will gain knowledge of issues related to museum and gallery studies
• Students will develop skills of visual analysis and synthesis
• Students will learn how to negotiate arguments through the use of visual images
• Students will develop professional skills
• Students will learn about the power of the exhibition as a communicative medium
• Students will engage with the basics of conservation in relation to display of archival items

• Students will develop skills of visual analysis and synthesis
• Students will learn how to negotiate arguments through the use of visual images
• Students will develop professional skills
• Students will enhance visual communication skills.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The module will be taught by a one-hour lecture every week and by a one-hour seminar every two weeks, where we will consider the role of the exhibition as a communicative medium both historically and contemporaneously as well as specific aspects of exhibition design. The student will be supported in their own attempt to bring together a body of visual material in the form of a virtual exhibition as a means of negotiating a particular view of idea that they might wish to present to a broad audience.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

<enter text as appropriate for the module>

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University