Fine Art Photography

Key Facts

Staff

Programme Overview

How to Apply

Institution Name: GSA
Institution Code: G43
UCAS Code: W640

Award

BA(Hons) Fine Art. All GSA degrees are validated by the University of Glasgow, a Russell Group institution in the top 1% of the world’s universities.

Assessment

Students receive a formal progress reviews at the end of each term with interim and end of year assessments taking into consideration the success of their search for a personal artistic language.

Facilities
Multi-unit colour darkrooms, enlargers - printing any format from 35mm to 5 x 4" and one of the largest colour printing facilities in any Scottish art institution. Colour negative processing lab, three black and white darkrooms able to produce mural size black and white prints and multi-unit digital darkrooms incorporating negative scanners, quad print and colour print facilities. Alternative process darkrooms, photographic studios, a film editing room, an audiovisual room and a range of print finishing facilities are also available. All Fine Art students have access to electronic media resources in the Rootstein Hopkins Suite.

Indicative Materials
Year 1: £200
Year 2: £500
Year 3: £700
Year 4: £900
Additional costs will be incurred for activities such as study trips and workshops.

Our Graduates Include:
Tris Vonna- Michell; Kirsten Simonsen, Film-maker; Louise Lockwood, Scottish BAFTA award-winning documentary film maker; Lesley Punton, practicing artist and academic; Vanessa Wenwieser; Finlay Mackay; Richard Niven

Head of Department
Professor Thomas Joshua Cooper

Tutors
David Bellingham
Anne Bjerge-Hansen
Lesley Punton
Christina McBride
Jake McKinney

Programme Overview

The Photography Programme at The Glasgow School of Art has an international reputation for excellence. Established in 1982, it was the first programme of its kind in Europe to award a BA(Hons) Degree in Fine Art Photography and has produced successive generations of successful graduates, many of whom are now leaders in their field.

For us, the invention of photography, and the birth of the modern age could be said to be simultaneous. The momentum of the industrial and post-industrial revolutions advanced photography at an incredible rate, from its low-tech photomechanical beginnings to its current digital, state-of-the-art technologies.

So, photography is a medium for which a blend of art and technology is fundamental. A blend of conceptual, aesthetic and technological awareness makes the use of photography one of the most relevant artist's mediums of this age.

The power of photography - seen everywhere, used by everyone - is sometimes easy to forget. However, it would be hard to imagine a world without photography and we look forward to sharing that world with you.

The BA (Hons) Fine Art is a four year, full-time degree programme and students are recruited into one of three specialist departments (Photography, Painting and Printmaking, Sculpture and Environmental Art).

The Fine Art programme employs a variety of learning and teaching methods which may alter and adapt according to the perceived needs of students. The main methods of programme delivery are lectures, seminars, artists' presentations and group discussions, tutorials, progress reviews. projects, group crits, workshops, students' exhibitions, field trips, independent study, and formative and summative assessments. In addition to this, the School provides students with opportunities to take part in placements, residences and exchanges. All students undertake a programme of study in the Forum for Critical Inquiry.

In addition to applications for first year level entry, the School also welcomes applications for second and, exceptionally, third year level entry from suitably qualified applicants.

Forum for Critical Inquiry

A element of the programme is delivered by the Forum for Critical Inquiry (FoCI) The Forum is an essential component of the programme. For most of the four years of undergraduate programmes in design and fine art, one day per week of the student timetable is allocated to the Forum. It is a cross-school and externally linked critical mass of diverse research expertise in broad-based critical studies for contemporary creative practices in design, art and architecture.

The range of teaching styles varies from traditional keynote lectures to interactive discussion groups and experiential learning. Courses are constructed in order to both underpin studio practice and to open out and extend the range of student research.

All students are required to attend lectures and discussion groups, to make oral presentations, to write essays and in the final year, to present a piece of personal research in the form of an Extended Essay (20% of the final degree mark) or a Dissertation (30% of the final degree mark).

Students requiring learning support are provided with additional teaching tailored to individual needs. Each student also has a departmental contact tutor who acts in an advisory and pastoral capacity in relation to progress in Forum for Critical Inquiry.