Visual Culture BA(Hons)

Why study with us? 

• Brighton is a creative, digital hub, jam-packed with museums, galleries and street art and the location for England’s leading art festival. It has a significant role in contemporary visual culture, from picture postcards, to films like Brighton Rock and Quadrophenia, to books such as Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman.

• You’ll get to grips with the theories from art, film and photography, while understanding the social and historical backgrounds that inform the culture around us.

• You’ll build core visual culture knowledge through seminars, team-based and individual research projects while developing your own specialist areas of interest by choosing from a range of options.

• On-site at the university, you will have access to our world-class Design Archives, an excellent art and design library, the Screen Archive South East and our Dress and Textiles Teaching collection. You can view the Design Archives blog for insight into our conservation work.

• You’ll develop your capacity for critical inquiry and analysis and gain hands-on placement experience, equipping you with transferable, relevant skills and giving you a competitive edge when you graduate.

• A thriving and international research culture ensures that you will learn from a wide range of academics and visiting makers, researchers and writers.

• You’ll be part of our lively student community studying History of Art and Design courses at Brighton. Check out the History of Art and Design blog and Twitter feed for an insight.

Poster advertising Brighton – early twentieth century. Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.

Year 1

The first year of the Visual Culture degree familiarises you with good study practices and introduces you to the different kinds of assessment used on the course, including essays, seminar presentations, display projects and exams. Much of the teaching will take place in small groups of around 12 students with one tutor.

Modules

• Art, Culture and Commerce

  In this module you will explore core concepts and historical phenomena, including colonialism, consumption, national identities and class constructions, which impacted on art, design and culture from the closing decades of the eighteenth century to the opening decades of the nineteenth. Through lectures and seminars, you will explore how enlightenment ideas and philosophies, as well as revolutionary upheavals and developing institutional practices, informed the conditions in which art and design was produced and consumed.

• Art and Design History in Brighton: Places and Processes

  In this module you will explore aspects of Brighton and Hove that are significant to the history of art and design within the locality and in some cases more broadly, through the introduction of key sites, themes and resources, for example, the Royal Pavilion and Museums; the historical development of local identities in subcultures and sexualities and Brighton on film. The topics are complemented by a seminar series that will equip you with the skills and tools to the study of history of art and design at degree level.

• Critical Approaches: Core Concepts in History of Art and Design

  This module will introduce you to core concepts and key words in the humanities (including ideology, gender, class, nationality and ethnicity) and will provide opportunities for evaluating your utility as a means of understanding art and design through your application to practices, sites and artefacts.

• Art, Design and Modern Life

  Through lectures and seminars, you will examine how ideas of ‘the modern’ and the contradictions of modernity are manifested in a wide range of visual and material culture including realist paintings, photography, advertising, dress, cities and international exhibitions during the long nineteenth century. The module relates practices of art, design, exhibition and dress to changing social structures and occupational patterns that informed many of the debates around art and design in the period.

• Analysing Art and Design: Techniques and Tools

  This module will introduce you to the frameworks and tools by which a variety of visual and material objects, images and environments can be ‘read’ and understood. The emphasis of the module is on the acquisition and application of a range of different technical methods for image and object analysis across a range of media forms, including acquisition of the specialist vocabulary suitable to the analytical method deployed, and an understanding of the appropriateness of each technique.

• Introducing Themes in History of Art and Design

  In this module you will undertake an intensive themed study related to your individual preferences and/or programme of study. The module will introduce you to the teaching and learning methods most relevant to the investigation of a particular area of inquiry within the History of Art and Design programme.

Our courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that what you learn with us is relevant and that your course enables you to develop appropriate skills. When you apply to study with us, we will inform you of any new developments in your chosen programme through our applicant portal.

Year 2

You can go on a five-day trip to a European city to study art, design and visual culture in context, with possible destinations including Paris and Berlin. The trip is optional and costs around £300.

Modules

• Modernism, Ideology and the Avant-garde in the Twentieth Century
• After Modernism: Postmodernism and Beyond
• Constructing Histories: Research Methods and Professional Practice in History of Art and Design

Options*

• Image Object Text**
• A Trip to Europe
• Considering Debates**
• Behind the Scenes: Arts and heritage placements
• Option module from across our humanities and arts subjects, including creative practice modules

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

**These modules may explore themes including modernism in Asia; museums, material culture and representation; cold war cultures; reading dress.

Final year

The final year sees you execute independent but closely supervised research projects, including your own dissertation, a group display project and a visual display of your dissertation research, which is shown as part of the arts and humanities graduate show. In these projects you are supported by one-to-one or small group supervision as well as peer support.

Modules

• Eye And Mind
• Dissertation in the History of Art and Design
• Communicating Research
• Special Subject

Options*

• Real World Research in Art and Design History
• Professional Paths in Art and Design History

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

The Special Subject module typically enables students to explore themes like making the modern home: design, domesticity and discourse; participation, performance, politics; the limits of representation; the past in the present: retro, vintage, revival; and fashion contexts. 

Original poster designs produced for dissertation projects by final-year students.

Resources

• We are proud to have a world-class Design Archives based on campus
• The university's excellent art and design library is nearby
• Screen Archives South East, a moving image archive, is based on campus
• Our Dress and Textiles Teaching collection gives you the chance to closely examine and photograph historical and world fabrics and garments.

The university has close relationships with local festivals and organisations such as CineCity, the Brighton Photo Biennial, Brighton Festival, Brighton Festival Fringe, Brighton Digital Festival, Fabrica and Lighthouse. These connections provide a range of opportunities for students.

Staff profile

Dr Annebella Pollen, course leader

Annebella is an academic working across a range of interests in material and visual culture.

Her research areas include mass photography and popular image culture, and histories of craft, design and dress. She has developed projects on historical youth cultures and experiments in living, on silhouette portraits, snapshot photographs and picture postcards, and on revivalism and utopianism.

Annebella leads the academic programme in history of art and design, which covers undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Find out about our other staff: Dr Harriet Atkinson, Dr Verity Clarkson, Dr Angelica Groom, Anna Vaughan Kett, Yunah Lee, Charlotte Nicklas, Louise Purbrick, Dr Megha Rajguru, Dr Glenn Ward.

Student views

Lizzie Lewis

"I decided to study Visual Culture as I was interested in art history, but also wanted to learn about design, photography and architecture. The course stood out for me, as it includes the study of both historical and contemporary arts. I have found myself drawn to realism in art, and have enjoyed exploring this material in depth, through presentations and essays. I have also studied the architecture and design of the British country house. A study trip to Paris was a brilliant experience, and our group spent five days visiting exhibitions, and developing our perceptions of Parisian culture.

"Although there is a lot of hard work, it is manageable, and you can usually tailor your assignments to suit you, as there is a lot of freedom in choosing areas of focus. Your tutors will guide you along the right path, and there is a wide collection of material at the library for you to use. There is also a diverse range of modules to choose from, and I would advise you to choose ones that interest you most, not necessarily subjects you know the most about."

Student work 

History of Art and Design programme dissertation catalogues 2018. View catalogues from previous years on Issuu.

International requirements

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Course fees

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2019–20.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

What's included in the fee?

When costs such as health or DBS checks, or use of specialist materials are incurred as a mandatory requirement of the course they are included in your tuition fee.

You may incur additional costs depending on the optional modules or activities you choose. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. Before you apply check with the school that provides your course using the contact details in the Find out more tab (at the end of this page) for advice about what is included and what optional costs you could face so you can budget accordingly.

See our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as further information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Local area

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

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University building

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