You can opt to complete this core module as either 180 credit points, or 160 credit points with an additional Advanced Art and Design Research 20 credit point module.

Photography (180 credit points or 160 credit points)

Working with your supervisor, and through discussion with your peers, you will develop a Learning Agreement that outlines both your personal and project aims.

Group tutorials will be used to invite debate and provide a platform to critique theory and practice. You will also be encouraged to evaluate the development of research, personal engagement, and reflective practice that feed your project, and that of others.

Regular tutorial discussions will be supported by a series of talks that examine the critical and historical methodologies surrounding photography. There will be a study trip to at least one photographic archive and a series of workshops which will reflect the changing requirements of your project.

Throughout the year all students, both full-time and part-time, will take part in a collaborative meeting (one per term) alongside staff members. This occasion is an opportunity to share ideas and develop a community of practice that will support the development of a final, collaborative exhibition.

Throughout the module you will keep a Reflective Journal in which you will record, analyse and evaluate your ideas, and consider ways in which your project might progress. You will also keep an annotated bibliography within your journal.

As part of a critical seminar series, you will write a critical essay which should show a clear understanding of the area of photographic practice that you are engaged in. You will then develop and write a contextual essay showing critical thought.

Alongside all of this, production workshops will help you to develop your pre-existing photography skills. The content of these will be based on the requirements of your project but could include areas such as high-end digital capture, alternative processes, and contemporary studio photography.

In the final phase of the module you will produce a substantial body of photographic work within the area of photography defined in your Learning Agreement and evidenced in your Reflective Journal.

This body of work will be assessed holistically at the end of the course: it will include a finalised Learning Agreement, a Reflective Journal, an Artist's Statement, and a final photographic show. This whole package will be supported by a presentation as part of your final assessment.

Advanced Art and Design Research (20 credit points)

This module will support your reflection on your research and practice through discursive lectures and coursework assignments. In these, you will contribute accounts of your postgraduate research enquiry, its antecedents in your practice and academic study, as well as your understanding of the role your practice can play in it.

After an initial diagnosis phase, where you’ll outline your perspectives on research, you’ll be introduced to an overview of the philosophical assumptions that underlie research across disciplines. You’ll also identify where these feature in your experience of education and practice.

You’ll be introduced to the literature on practice based research that has grown out of PhD activity in Art, Design and Performance, in which you will discover the direction you want your work to take. The module then identifies a range of practice based approaches that are found across disciplines from education to archaeology, and laboratory science.

The second phase of the module brings these insights to be applied to your practice, so that it can be an element in a research design that will contribute to knowledge. This process includes a reflective audit of the research dimensions of your practice, to identify elements of it that could be part of a research design. The outcome of this audit will help you to build a prospective view of the design of potential research processes that include your practice, as well as appropriate modes of analysis and reporting.

At the end of the module you will write up your responses to the discursive lectures, supplementing them with appropriate visual material (no more than 3,000 words).