Introducing Fine Art (4-year Undergraduate Fine Art programme)
Our BA (Hons) Fine Art programme focuses on developing confident, enquiring and resilient fine art practitioners.
The programme is aimed at students who are interested in working within a vibrant and interdisciplinary fine art environment. Our students show imaginative responses to the world through curiosity and exploration. They are equipped with the talent, knowledge and expertise to lead, not simply respond to, innovation in contemporary fine art practice. We prepare them for this with an educational experience offering breadth, depth and ambition.
We provide a broad-based environment that allows students to engage in the study of contemporary art. They have access to world-class studio facilities within the broader context of one of the world’s top universities. Students create work through researching, thinking through making, experimentation, taking risks and commitment. They are encouraged to think of fine art as a tool that can affect change in the wider society.
Creative community
In ECA School of Art, we believe there is real value in working as part of a community with a dynamic and creative shared energy. Teaching staff are actively engaged in wide-ranging research and research methods that feed into course delivery and projects. A diverse programme of diverse visiting artists also contribute to an energetic and productive learning environment in the studios and beyond.
BA (Hons) Fine Art students regularly exhibit work, both individually and collectively and internally and externally. This event-based learning enables discourse and the opportunity to engage with organisations in the wider community.
Visits to national institutions, galleries and collaborations with other art and relevant non-art organisations in Edinburgh take place throughout the four years of the BA (Hons) Fine Art degree and students are also encouraged to travel further afield. A trip to view a range of exhibitions in London takes place in second year and an overseas trip to either Berlin or the Venice Biennale is offered in the third year of study.
Areas you will work in
Tutorials, seminars, group critiques, workshops, lectures and external projects all support students’ developing practice. Students are exposed to, and can choose to work across, a number of areas central to contemporary fine art practice, including:
- artist’s books
- digital and lens-based media
- drawing
- installation
- movement
- moving image
- painting
- performance
- participatory practice
- photography
- printmaking
- public art
- publications
- sculpture
- sound
Elective courses
ECA School of Art offers elective courses, particularly in years 1 and 2 of the BA (Hons) Fine Art programme. These give students choices to pursue a breadth and depth of subjects during the course of their studies on BA (Hons) Fine Art.
We recognise the desire to be immersed in one discipline, but also believe that exposure to a diverse range of subjects, methods and knowledge via elective course study enhances students’ learning. Subject to availability of places year on year, BA (Hons) Fine Art students’ elective course choices can range across the unique portfolio of creative and scholarly disciplines practiced at ECA and across the wider University of Edinburgh.
Equipment
The technical staff and equipment in the ECA workshops provide excellent support for working in:
- 3D printing
- casting
- glass
- laser cutting
- metal
- mould-making
- printmaking
- textile printing
- wood
Our students also have access to software and IT facilities for working with sound, digital imaging, video editing, VR and AR.
Art Context
An Art Context strand of courses offered throughout the BA (Hons) Fine Art programme offers a scholarly framework and provides a multidisciplinary context for students’ development of their own contemporary fine art practice.
Students’ participation in Art Context courses involves the imaginative research, analysis and communication of issues raised by the visual aspects of culture. Students engage in a critical and creative dialogue with the work of their peers. They also gain an understanding of the nature of today's diverse visual cultures. They study the artistic, intellectual, social and professional contexts that shape creative fine art practice and learn how best to communicate this knowledge in a range of written, oral, visual and practical forms.