Fine Art with a Foundation Year

This four-year BA (Hons) Fine Art with a Foundation Year course has been specifically designed to allow you to undertake an additional year of study which will build stronger creative footings to ensure successful progression through your chosen degree course.

Working in a friendly, lively and energetic environment, you will be given the freedom to expand your knowledge of practical skills, creative exploration and conceptual thinking, underpinned by broad critical understanding, academic writing and emerging theoretical principles.

Dedicated Foundation tutors will support you throughout the year and BA teaching staff within the Birmingham Institute of Creative Arts (BICA) will work closely with you to prepare you for progression.

There will be a range of opportunities to work on collaborative and individual projects, aimed to build your social skills and identify your role as a developing practitioner.

Throughout the year you will be challenged with projects that question your current creative experiences and explore a breadth of experimentation to broaden your technical and critical understanding.

You will be encouraged to analyse methods and materials appropriate for creative development and to question your position in relation to historical, contemporary and future world scenarios. Both practical and written research tasks will be supported by one to one tutorials and small discussion groups to help you constructively build academic and social confidence.

The first two semester modules will form the building blocks for future work and will explore core principles of creative practice focussing on the development of technical confidence, study skills and productivity.

The two final semester modules will encourage a positive integration between research and practice, challenging decision making and technical competency.

This semester is designed to empower you with independent learning kills appropriate for your future BA studies.

On successful completion of the Foundation Year, you will have the flexibility to change direction and switch courses onto a related undergraduate degree programme.

BA (Hons) Fine Art

Through the skilful manipulation of materials, processes, and ideas, you, as an artist, will be able to offer creative insights that shape who you are and how you exist in the world around you. These are valuable skills in the fast-changing and interconnected web of ecological, political, socio-economic, and philosophical contexts.

The BA (Hons) Fine Art course will help you embrace important traditional making skills such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, installation, digital media, and performance, while also encouraging you to fuse these with new developments in creative practice. This will be framed within a professional working context to improve your employability. This hybrid approach, along with discipline-specific studios and specialist workshops, will equip you to navigate the evolving landscape of the Creative Industries into the future.