Fine Art BA

Course overview

You’ll explore and challenge your idea of art by engaging with a broad array of artistic practices and theoretical ideas. We approach fine art as a collection of forms, concepts and creative methods for addressing some of the most pressing questions society is faced with today.

You’ll investigate the interconnections between art and the larger social dynamics that shape our culture, such as ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, being human and our relationship to nature and the environment. You’ll become equipped to act in the world as artists and creative global citizens, innovators in your respective fields of making. We’ll prepare you to be a socially conscious graduate with an array of relevant and transferrable skills.

By immersing yourself in a range of art techniques and practices, you’ll experiment with your own creativity and discover your personal style. You’ll be given a dedicated studio space to work from, allowing you lots of opportunity to embrace a multitude of materials and methods, to develop an ambitious and creative body of work.

You’ll have opportunities to contribute to the creative community, to build networks in the city and to exhibit your work regularly. Through a range of professional development programmes, such as our weekly visiting artist talks and surfacing skills workshops, you’ll discover what kind of practitioner you want to be.

Additional highlights

Our course provides you with multiple opportunities to experiment across different media and undertake original research, while building broader skills in curating, event production, critical thinking, writing, researching, publishing and media content production.

You’ll work alongside art historians and cultural theorists within a purpose-built School that includes studios, technical workshops, a project gallery, seminar rooms and a shared student common room.

Throughout the course, we’ll support you in discovering what kind of creative practitioner you want to be. You’ll evolve a personalised approach to achieving your creative aspirations and develop an ambitious body of work produced in our excellent workshop facilities. Your practice will be enriched by modules in art history, museum and curatorial studies and cultural and media theory, alongside professional practice opportunities that help you thrive within the wider art world and creative sectors.

We champion a School-based artist community ethos by providing shared studio space with 24 hour access, regular open studio and exhibition events, informal learning groups, opportunities for student-led social events and access to the city’s artistic scene. Field trips to art fairs, exhibitions and festivals, regional museums and galleries are organised across all levels. Our exemplary Year in Industry programme has led to students successfully undertaking work placements in the UK and internationally, some of which have become permanent employment in the arts sector, while our Study Abroad programme has provided life-changing experiences for many in our community.

Specialist facilities

The School has excellent facilities and resources including:

• The Project Space – a professionally fitted exhibition space, suitable for all media

• dedicated Mac and PC computer suites for audio production, video editing animation and image manipulation

• printmaking workshops for etching, relief and screen printing 

• a photography darkroom for film developing and printing 

• a woodworking and casting area 

• digital and 3D printing

• ceramics and kiln facilities 

In addition to the wide range of museums and galleries in the city and beyond, the University campus features: 

• The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery 

• Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery 

• Museum of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine 

• Marks & Spencer Company Archive 

• International Textile Collection 

• Public art trail 

• @Stage Theatre

• Clothworkers Hall music venue

• Leeds University Union events

The University Library offers online books, journals and databases, has a wealth of archive material in its Special Collections, including manuscript, archive and early printed material, and provides a range of spaces for individual study or group work. You’ll also benefit from access to Box of Broadcasts, an archive of over 2 million TV and radio broadcasts.

Course details

Your degree is centred around studio work, giving you the time and space, through speculative making, to explore and develop your ideas. You’ll take field trips to exhibitions, galleries and fine art fairs and combine lectures with group seminar sessions to discuss contemporary art practice, which you can use to contextualise your own creative work.

From the start of the course, you are encouraged to find your own direction as an artist.

During term time, we invite arts practitioners from around the world to talk to our Fine Art students. The Visiting Artists Talks provide an excellent opportunity to engage with national and international contemporary artists, art writers and curators.

Year 1

Through engaging with a range of artist/tutors you’ll explore exciting responses to a variety of initiatives, opening up creative possibilities that will add potential to your own experiences.

You’ll be introduced to the key concepts, formal approaches, and critical discourses of fine art as viewed from a broad range of time periods and cultural perspectives. Compulsory modules will examine contested ideas about the artist and art, how the theory and history of art relate to practice, and the role of dissemination in the contemporary art world.

You will also continue to develop your individual practice, which will be explored and developed throughout the year.

Year 2

You’ll build upon and critically apply the knowledge and skills learned in your first year and further pursue your own individual interests. Compulsory modules will deepen your understanding of the complex nature of art practices from a historical and contemporary perspective, as well as allowing you to further develop your portfolio.

You'll choose from a wide range of optional modules, which include medieval European art, the New York School and the context of African art.

Year 3

You’ll consolidate your individual practices, which will culminate in planning and organising a curated exhibition and public degree show. You have full authorship of this project where you can apply your artistic and professional skills as you interact with your fellow students, outside agencies, sponsors and the media.

This is supported by a professional practice module that consolidates both the practical and intellectual skills that you have developed in years one and two.

It will provide an awareness and understanding of the complex and diverse nature of contemporary practice.

You’ll undertake a self-directed research project to explore concerns and aspects of your research that support your visual art practice.

Course structure

The list shown below represents typical modules/components studied and may change from time to time. Read more in our terms and conditions.

Year 1
Compulsory modules

Introduction to Practice  (40 credits) - You’ll study fine art practice, history of art and cultural theory. You’ll be given the chance to explore contemporary and traditional approaches to fine art across a range of disciplines, making use of our excellent resources, including, film, experimental printmaking, ceramics, art writing, sculpture, photography and audio-visual practices.    

You’ll be introduced into the broader context of contemporary art practices, engaging with artists, tutors and curators through practical studio workshops, live projects and exhibition opportunities. You’ll begin to develop the skills to discuss and analyse contemporary art, as well as deepening your understanding of art history and critical theory.

You'll be introduced to the fundamental skills for developing your own exciting body of work while building critical awareness of the spaces, institutions, social practices and networks in which art is produced and disseminated. Working independently and collaboratively, you'll make and study contemporary art practice in its most diverse forms, culminating towards the end of the year in a curated exhibition or public event, related to personal research interests.    

You’ll have access to our project space and external venues for display, curating and performance. 

Practice [2] (40 credits)  -  This module continues with the development of independent studio work for developing self-directed practice-based research. You must also engage with a series of lectures, seminars, tutorials and visiting speakers throughout the course which contributes to the discussions around contemporary art practice and professional development.  

You’ll work in self-selected groups to realise some form of exhibition or equivalent public presentation of your work. This module invites you to engage with audiences, new places and spaces, curating and disseminating your research within and outside of the University.

Elements of Visual Culture 1 (20 credits) - Taking the act of ‘seeing’ as its starting point, this module asks you to analyse assumptions about art that may appear natural, obvious or unquestionable. By exploring the many ways in which ‘seeing’ is -thought and theorised, you’ll question the relation between society, ideas, art and writing. You’ll consider how visual culture conveys and constructs social values and how ‘seeing’ is wrapped-up with verbal representations and conceptualisations, gaining skills of critical thinking, visual analysis and independent learning in the process.

Elements of Visual Culture 2 (20 credits) - Drawing on a wide array of critical art-historical sources and examples from visual culture, this module considers some of the ideological and conceptual structures associated with shaping the process of seeing. Through close reading, you’ll gain an awareness of various categories and structures for seeing, you’ll question notions of ‘meaning’ and ‘interpretation’. Using these ideas as a basis, you’ll develop critical thinking and writing skills to explore, and reflect on, how our lived experience and social relations are shaped by many different, yet interrelated, structures and modes of seeing.

Year 2
Compulsory modules

Practice [3] (20 credits) - This module builds on your achievements of the previous year as you take on your own studio in a shared communal space. The emphasis is on independent, self-directed, practice-based research and continuing to address questions of its dissemination, presentation and audience. You’ll develop your work supported by individual tutorials, group crits and technical workshops that allow you to explore the processes and materiality available to realise your creative aspirations. You’ll work towards presenting your work in an open studio event and an exhibition. This module furthers your exploration in developing your professional practices through the programme of visiting artist talks and the surfacing skills workshops.

Practice [4] (40 credits) - Working in small collaborative research clusters, you’ll develop a body of work that explores your ideas of audience in relation to appropriate methods of display for your work.  Individual work will continue to be developed while collaborative support discussions will establish clear strategies to present your work for public display. This module will be supported by individual tutorials and group crits, that continue to support your analytical approach to your own work and that of your colleagues. Technical workshops and individual sessions with our technicians will allow you to continue to explore a range of processes and materials in order to realise your creative aspirations.

Optional modules

The New York School (20 credits) - You’ll examine aspects of the shift of the metropolitan centre of the avant garde from Paris to New York at the end of the 1930s, the art and art criticism associated with it, and the ways that art and art criticism was developed, contradicted and transcended in the post war period 1947-1958/9. Artists considered will include Pollock, Rauschenberg, Johns, Louis, Noland, Kaprow, Stella, Rothko, Barnett- Newman, Reinhardt, Frankenthaler, amongst others. The idea of the Cold War, contemporary politics, formalist theory and contemporary debates on the nature of 'American Art' will provide the context for your understanding of the practices and reception of such artists.

Cinema and Culture (20 credits) - You’ll comparatively examine specific films and their remake(s). This approach enables us to note cultural, social and technological shifts over time, to discuss the possibilities and challenges of transnational remakes and to consider wider questions of inter-, para- and metatextuality in 20th century cinema and our postcinematic age. You’ll engage with relevant discourses and make detailed analyses of screenings, readings and terminologies. The module also dedicates time to develop your writing and presentation skills. Techniques and strategies of how to construct a focused argument, find appropriate literature and read a film closely will be explicitly addressed and practiced in this module.

Seeing in Asia (20 credits) -Are there fundamental differences between the ways you see familiar objects and those from Asia? Are there ways in which the power and meanings of 'seeing' change in an Asian context, so that even though we are 'seeing' the same object, we understand the object differently? How do cultural and historical values and standards shape the act of seeing and how we interpret images? By engaging with wide-ranging historical and cultural examples drawn from a range of specialities from art to science, this module addresses the age-old problem of ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’ through the perspective of Asian Culture.

Variant Modernism (20 credits) - Narrative histories of English Art in the 20th century have tended to imply a succession of movements of varying 'modernity'. You’ll look at the different definitions of 'modern' or 'contemporary' art at different historical moments in 20th century England to the present day, as well as studying the underlying critical ideologies. This module will make particular use of the notable collections of Leeds City Art Gallery and the University Collections to understand museological collecting and display policies.

The Grand Tour: Travels, Excavations, Collections (20 credits) - The Grand Tour’s origins lie in the early 17th century, when a small number of British aristocrats left their native islands to explore the cultural capitals of Europe. By the 18th century, it had developed into a rite of passage for privileged young men sent abroad to expand their knowledge of the visual arts, architecture, music and foreign political systems. Its culmination was Rome, where a thriving cultural industry arose to meet the demand for paintings, objet d’art and antiquities. This module will follow a typical Grand Tour itinerary; assess the importance of certain travellers, guides, artists and dealers; explore key publications (some of which are held in Special Collections of the Brotherton Library); and analyse the classification systems and modes of display of major Grand Tour collections in Great Britain and Ireland.

The Art Market: Moments, Methodologies, Meanings (20 credits) - This module introduces some of the main themes in the histories of the art market. It is a chronologically ordered and thematic investigation that focuses on key notions, such as the Primary (production) and Secondary (resale/collecting) art markets, and key segments such as the Fine and Decorative Art ('Antiques') markets. The role of key institutions, such as auction houses and galleries, and key agents, such as art dealers, collectors and artists, are also addressed. You’ll critically reflects on the meanings of some of the dominant tropes associated with those that have traded in art objects, such as the consistent theme of forgery and fakes, as well as the role that the art market plays in the complex nature of the notion of 'value'.

African Art I: Context Representation Signification (20 credits) This module gives you an insight into African art and the ability to complete a critical assessment of the topic. You’ll understand some of the major issues confronting African art history and will gain knowledge of some of the key aspects of African visual cultures. You’ll also be able to recognise key works of African art.

Bodies of Difference: Gender, Power and the Visual Arts (20 credits) This module explores a range of feminist, postcolonial and queer theories of the embodiment of gender, its performance, performativity and representation in art and visual culture, showing the relations between the two. You’ll address shifts in the representational schema of the woman's body by the study of a range of feminist perspectives that offer a critical framework for thinking about the body, embodiment and difference in all its intersectional complexity. This module also covers a range of theories and concepts that are vital to our understanding of the power and dynamics of gender and the body that are operative in art history and visual culture. It is in this sense that we will move toward the recent critical feminist theories and art practices that have revisited and challenged the conventions and representations that encoded ‘woman’ as the image of desire.

Renaissance / Anti-Renaissance: Critical Approaches to Early Modern Art in Europe (20 credits)  - You’ll engage with several questions fundamental to a critical and historical approach to Renaissance art. Starting with the provocative notion of Anti-Renaissance – explored by the Italian art historian Eugenio Battisti, and in related discussions elsewhere – we will think through the Renaissance as a dynamic site of conflict, contestation and experiment. Against an idea of the Renaissance as the expression of a calm, linear ‘progress’ – towards artistic perfection, towards a rational approach to the world, towards the triumph of the ‘individual’ – notions like Battisti’s enable what is arguably a vital shift of attention to difference, to counter-tendencies, and to the instability, contingency, and even possibly the non-existence, of what are casually accepted as Renaissance ‘ideals’.

Towards the Future (20 credits) - This module provides you with an opportunity to think about the ways in which your knowledge and expertise can be applied beyond your university studies. In order to participate in this module you will need to secure an opportunity to volunteer or work in an external context (such as school education, third sector, or with community groups, or you could use experiences you are gaining through engagement with Leeds University Union). You will be encouraged to consider the relevance of your academic studies and skills beyond Higher Education and to reflect on how framing your studies within an external context can inform your learning and academic practice. This module will support you to reflect on your personal skills development and the ethical implications of working with external partners.

Year 3
Compulsory modules

Practice [5] (20 credits)  - In this module you’ll begin to consolidate some of the ideas, theories, processes and materials that make up your individual creative practice.  This module is taught through individual tutorials with professional artists, curators and writers, and group crits. During this module you’ll make work for a group exhibition project set by your lead tutor, to be exhibited in The Project Space. By the end of the module, you’ll have gained advanced technical skills in your chosen media and a highly critical understanding of contemporary art practice and its history. You’ll continue to benefit from the visiting artist talks and a programme of surfacing skill workshops, talks and projects. There will be additional opportunities for you to participate in technical workshops and field trips to contemporary art exhibitions and events.

Practice, towards exhibition (40 credits) - In this module you’ll continue to develop your research- driven creative practice to produce a highly consolidated body of work and apply critical skills to its presentation. The focus is towards the public platform of the degree show exhibition. In addition to exhibiting, you’ll have the opportunity to volunteer on the curatorial organising group and to gain invaluable experience of planning and delivering a large-scale group exhibition. Our artistic community has full authorship of their degree show. You'll apply your creative and professional skills to collaborate with fellow artists, engage with partner external agencies, sponsors and the media, while being supported by our specialist technicians, academic staff and University marketing team.  

Dissertation (40 credits) - The aim of a dissertation is to foster your own independent research and scholarship alongside your studio practice, by identifying appropriate critical, historical and theoretical frameworks for your chosen subject. Your project is supported by a dedicated dissertation supervisor, who is aligned to your research interests. You might use this arts-based research opportunity to further your own practice concerns, helping you to address critical cultural questions, or material concerns, future practice options or to identify new forms of knowledge that will support you in your future career plans or to launch further study in an MA or similar further postgraduate study programme.

Optional modules

From Trauma to Cultural Memory: The Unfinished Business of Representation and the Holocaust (20 credits)  - This module addresses debates in literary, historiographical and psychological theory about the ways in which witnesses provide testimony, and the ways in which the legacy of a historical trauma of the magnitude of the Holocaust is represented by historians, sociologists, writers, artists and museums. Rather than an historical study of the events of 1933-45, you’ll consider the continuing significance of this disaster in the larger context of European history. You’ll pay close attention to the voices and images of those who continue to live with a trauma that only psychological, analytical, creative work can turn into memory, which the cultures of Europe must take on as the history that continues to shape our present responses to all forms of racism, genocide and violence against the stranger.

Cultural Diversity in Museum and Material Culture - Case Study (20 credits) -Museums are increasingly conscious of the need to be socially inclusive. Traditional models of privileging high art and 'white western' art have come under sharp criticism. On this module, you’ll examine how museums have integrated (or failed to do so) the artefacts of the Jewish minorities in Europe and the USA. You’ll look at the historical reasons for the omission of Jewish culture from many museums, and the particularities of the models adopted for Jewish museums and Jewish exhibits in ethnographic and local history contexts.

Anthropology, Art and Representation (20 credits) - The anthropology of art has long been a fertile and vital area of contention around cultural value and cross-cultural relationships. It has not been merely an academic area of enquiry, but one caught up in the debates and controversies in the public sphere, about museums exhibitions. In addition, the anthropology of art provides a comparative perspective on the way in which art is represented in the west. The issue of cultural representation is therefore of crucial importance to an understanding of the way in which Euro-American interacts with the rest of the world. You’ll examine specific objects and "texts", and their interpretation, in relation to larger questions concerning gender, embodiment, technology and representation.

Unmaking Things: Materials and Ideas in the European Renaissance (20 credits) - This module will attend to a series of questions generated by historical consideration of the materials from which Renaissance artworks and objects were made. With a focus on Europe (though in several ways thinking about European encounters with other cultures), we will develop approaches that cross between close object-analysis and critical reflection on some of the broader social, political, religious and philosophical frameworks in which ideas of materiality took shape in this period. You’ll look at primary written sources and think about a broad range of objects and materials. We will pursue ways of ‘unmaking’ the ostensibly settled and self-contained appearance of Renaissance objects, and of positioning them as active engagements within dynamic, and often conflicting, cultural tendencies.

Critical Approaches to Photography (20 credits) - Photographic images saturate every corner of contemporary society in a developed country to such an extent that it is difficult to spend a day without seeing a photographic image. Yet, the popular concepts in discussions of photography remain overused and unexamined at best ('truth' 'reflection' 'index'). By engaging with historical and cultural treatises about the medium and its property (how photography 'reflects' reality, how photographers 'see' differently, for instance) this module excavates the multiple layers of philosophical issues embedded in concepts such as 'truth,' 'reality' and 'mediation' in thinking about and writing about photographic images.

Postcolonial Feminisms (20 credits) - You’ll examine feminist theory and politics, as they have developed in the context of the period of decolonization and its wake. Emphasis will fall on theoretical formulations concerning sexual difference and the social division of gender as these have been produced by women writing to or from former European colonies. Attention will also be given to questions posed by and for feminism within postcolonial metropoles.

Antique Dealers: The Market for 'Decorative Art' from Curiosities to Retro (20 credits) - You’ll pay critical attention to the history of the 'modern' antiques ('Decorative Art') trade, from its development in the early 19th century to the present day. You’ll get an introduction to some of the main themes in the histories of the market for antiques through a chronologically ordered and thematic investigation focused on key notions and practices, placing these into their social, cultural, economic and political contexts. The focus begins with a critical investigation on the shifting meaning of the notion of 'antiques' and the development of related terms such as 'curiosities' and 'bric-a-brac', as well as the emergence of more recent notions such as 'vintage' and 'retro'. The focus of the module is on the history, role, and practices of 'antique dealers', and introduces you to some of the most important dealers and their histories, placing the dealers into the context of the history of the market for 'antiques' more generally. The module also critically reflects on the meanings of some of the dominant tropes associated with those that have traded in art objects, such as the consistent theme of forgery and fakes in the biography of the antique dealer, as well as directing attention to the portrayal of the antique dealer in both factual discourse and fictional representation (visual and literary).

Africa and the Atlantic World: History, Historiography and the Visual Arts (20 credits) - This module is about aspects of the visual arts of the region south of the Sahara, mostly from Congo/Zaire through West Africa to the Atlantic coast, and to the Americas. It explores episodes with which one might begin to write a history of contemporary sub-Saharan African art. Three themes dominate the module:- First, there is the relationship between antiquity and the modern world, the ways indigenous achievement provided the basis for aspects of change and development characteristic of the period to the end of the 19th century. Second, there is the relationship between 'tradition' and the 20th/21st century, when colonial and primitivist stereotypes are challenged through developments in art and other areas of social practice. Third, we look at what happens in the African diasporas: what survived the Middle Passage, 'Africa' as a source of new identity.

Movies, Migrants and Diasporas (20 credits) - This module is dedicated to migration and diaspora in Europe as reflected in the cinema. It introduces you to the work of filmmakers with, for example, German Turkish, Black or Asian British, Maghrebi French, Roma or Jewish backgrounds, productions made by transnational Eastern European practitioners and films about migration and diaspora created by non-migrant/diasporic writers and directors.

Discovery modules

Throughout your degree you will benefit from a range of opportunities to expand your intellectual horizons outside or within your subject area.

This course gives you the opportunity to choose from a range of discovery modules. They’re a great way to tailor your study around your interests or career aspirations and help you stand out from the crowd when you graduate. Find out more about discovery modules on our Broadening webpages.

Learning and teaching

On this course you’ll be taught by our expert academics, from lecturers through to professors. You may also be taught by industry professionals with years of experience, as well as trained postgraduate researchers, connecting you to some of the brightest minds on campus.

Assessment

We use a combination of assessment methods that allows you to develop diverse skills. These include your studio work, essays and exams, depending on the modules you have selected to study. 

Assessment is led by principles of relevance, fairness and inclusivity, and the development of vital skills beyond university, such as problem solving, adaptability, self-reliance and reflexivity.   

Practice modules, across the three years of study, are assessed by the submission, at the end of each module, of a single PDF portfolio and supporting statement. 

Entry requirements

A-level: ABB

Other course specific tests:

Where an applicant is undertaking an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), the School may make an alternative offer that is one A level grade below that of our standard offer – on the condition that the applicant achieves a grade A in their EPQ (e.g. ABB at A level / alternative offer BBB plus grade A in EPQ).

NB: An EPQ is optional and not a requirement of application.

All applicants will also be required to submit a satisfactory portfolio of work.

Alternative qualification

Read more about UK and Republic of Ireland accepted qualifications or contact the School’s Undergraduate Admissions Team.

Alternative entry

We’re committed to identifying the best possible applicants, regardless of personal circumstances or background.

Access to Leeds is an alternative admissions scheme which accepts applications from individuals who might be from low income households, in the first generation of their immediate family to apply to higher education, or have had their studies disrupted.

Find out more about Access to Leeds and alternative admissions.

Typical Access to Leeds offer: BBC at A Level and pass Access to Leeds.

Arts and Humanities with Foundation Year

If you would like to study arts, humanities, and cultures at university, but don't currently meet the typical entry requirements for direct entry to a degree, you might be eligible to apply for the Arts and Humanities with Foundation Year course.

International

We accept a range of international equivalent qualifications. Contact the Undergraduate Admissions Office for more information.

English language requirements

IELTS 6.0 overall, with no less than 5.5 in any component. For other English qualifications, read English language equivalent qualifications.

Improve your English
If you're an international student and you don't meet the English language requirements for this programme, you may be able to study our undergraduate pre-sessional English course, to help improve your English language level.

Fees

UK: £9,250 (per year)

International: £24,500 (per year)

Tuition fees for UK undergraduate students starting in 2023/24 and 2024/25
Tuition fees for UK full-time undergraduate students are set by the UK Government and will remain capped at £9,250 for 2023/24 and 2024/25. The fee may increase in future years of your course in line with inflation only as a consequence of future changes in Government legislation and as permitted by law.

Tuition fees for international undergraduate students starting in 2023/24 and 2024/25
Tuition fees for international students for 2023/24 and 2024/25 are available on individual course pages.

Tuition fees for a study abroad or work placement year
If you take a study abroad or work placement year, you’ll pay a reduced tuition fee during this period. For more information, see Study abroad and work placement tuition fees and loans.

Read more about paying fees and charges.

There may be additional costs related to your course or programme of study, or related to being a student at the University of Leeds. Read more about additional costs.

Scholarships and financial support

If you have the talent and drive, we want you to be able to study with us, whatever your financial circumstances. There is help for students in the form of loans and non-repayable grants from the University and from the government. Find out more in our Undergraduate funding overview.

Applying

Apply to this course through UCAS. Check the deadline for applications on the UCAS website.

Read our guidance about applying.

International students apply through UCAS in the same way as UK students. Our network of international representatives can help you with your application. If you’re unsure about the application process, contact the admissions team for help.

Read about visas, immigration and other information in International students. We recommend that international students apply as early as possible to ensure that they have time to apply for their visa.

Next steps

Applicants will also be required to submit a satisfactory portfolio of work.

Admissions policy

University of Leeds Taught Admissions Policy 2024

This course is taught by

School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies

Contact us

School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies Undergraduate Admissions

Email: finadm@leeds.ac.uk
Telephone:

Career opportunities

We have a strong commitment to enhancing student employability and embedding transferrable skills that are extendable into a range of careers. Our graduates become ambitious and pioneering artists, curators, critics, journalists and innovative initiators working across a wide range of creative fields.

Many of our graduates combine careers as artists with work in education, museums and galleries and art therapy. They have established new cultural enterprises including The Tetley, Leeds’ contemporary art space. Others use their knowledge and skills to launch careers in fields including journalism, broadcasting, marketing, technology, business or design. Our graduates have gone on to postgraduate study including fine art, curating and museum studies, arts marketing, art and business, art and design PGCE, interactive design, gaming, animation and art and ecology. Many have completed PhDs and are teaching in higher education institutions around the world. As a School we have an engaged research community made up of MA and PhD students working across fine art practices, art history, cultural studies, gallery, museum and heritage studies.

We are dedicated to helping you achieve your career ambitions - you'll be able to work closely with our exhibiting and research active staff in the School to source opportunities to gain experience, develop your skills and build networks. The optional Study Abroad or Year in Industry also offers opportunities to gain transferable skills, develop your experience and create strong working relationships.

Leeds for Life is our unique approach to helping you make the most of university by supporting your academic and personal development. Find out more at the Leeds for Life website. The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more at the Careers website.

For my dissertation I was able to choose a research area related to the career that I would like to pursue. Through my research project I had the opportunity to make professional contacts within arts events management.

- Imogen Dunkley, BA Fine Art with Contemporary Cultural Theory

Careers support

Each level has regular opportunities for making and exhibiting work off site as well as in the School, to explore innovative forms of audience engagement and participation. At each level we introduce you to a range of essential skills workshops, talks and presentations, with practical advice to support your thriving in the wider creative and artworld.

Study abroad and work placements

Study abroad

On this course you have the opportunity to apply to spend time abroad, usually as an extra academic year. We have over 300 University partners worldwide and popular destinations for our students include Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa and Latin America. 

Find out more at the Study Abroad website.

Our exemplary Study Abroad programme enables you to undertake a formative and exciting year-long study in Year 3, with our partner universities all over the world. You’ll be able to choose from an array of institutions and benefit not only from different approaches to art teaching and making, but cultural experiences and new friends that could transform your life forever, graduating with a BA Fine Art (International) degree. Universities and art schools recently chosen by our students for their study abroad year include:

• Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts (Budapest)

• York University (Toronto)

• Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milan)

• Universidad Politécnica De Valencia

• Erasmus University Rotterdam

• University of Lisbon

I went on a year abroad to Toronto, and had an amazing experience. I gained inspiration for my art practice and I now know that I could live anywhere in the world if I wanted to – it gave me so much confidence.

- Alex Oliver, BA Fine Art with History of Art

Work placements

Practical work experience can help you decide on your career and improve your employability. On this course you have the option to apply to take a placement year module with organisations across the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK, or overseas.

Find out more about work experience on the Careers website.

Our exemplary Year in Industry initiative has led to students successfully undertaking work-based placements locally and internationally, some of which have led to permanent full-time employment after graduation. On undertaking this opportunity, students will graduate with a BA Fine Art (Industry) degree. Recent placements include; Archival assistant at Chert Ludde Gallery, Berlin; Social Media assistant at CeeCee, Berlin; Arts PR Consultancy with Bolton & Quinn, London; Marketing assistant, L’Oreal, UK; Programme Assistant at Oris House of Architecture, Croatia and Palazzo Monti Artist Residency, Italy; Gallery assistant at Wychwood Gallery, UK; Assistant Producer at Limehouse Film Production, Leeds; Gallery Assistant at ArtDog London & Nahmed Gallery, London; Marketing role with Adobe Design Projects. 

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