BA Fine Art with Contemporary Cultural Theory

Programme overview

Entry requirements

Entry Requirements are available on the Course Search entry

Programme specification

The Fine Art with Contemporary Cultural Theory programme at the University of Leeds invites you to explore and challenge what you understand by art by engaging with a broad array of artistic practices and understanding their cultural and theoretical development as the creation of ‘meaningful’ objects within emerging and often contested discourses. In a world requiring new forms of consciousness, perception and insight, we approach fine art as a constellation of materials, histories, practices, concepts, so that we can consider what art, with its increasingly complex myriad of practices and media, can meaningfully continue to contribute both culturally and socially. This is enabled by working in an interdisciplinary space, alongside other artists and cultural theorists, through both core and optional modules linked across the full programme of study. Within this active space there is a real emphasis on the interconnections between the creation of art, its theoretical importance as a mode of ‘making’ meaning as well as the consolidation and questioning of its place within the broader interconnectivity of cultural and creative practices. This programme therefore offers an active and creative exploration of art’s capacity to illuminate the wider frameworks, both practice-led and academic, that shape our culture and society, such as those of ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality, identity, and our relations to nature and the environment. You will complete the programme equipped to act in the world as well-informed artists and creative global citizens, innovators in your respective fields of making, and socially, theoretically and culturally confident, with a broad range of relevant and transferrable skills, as both makers and academics.

Throughout the course, you will also have opportunities to contribute to the creative community, to build networks in the city and beyond, to exhibit your work regularly and to discover what kind of practitioner you want to be. This is supported by various professional development activities and participation in local and regional artist-led spaces, museums, galleries and heritage venues. We offer an Industry Placement Programme which has led our students to successfully undertake work placements in the UK and internationally, whilst our Study Year Abroad programme at comparable international institutions has provided valuable experiences for many in our community. Our Fine Art with Contemporary Cultural Theory programme thereby practices at the intersection of making, thinking, exploring and researching, enabling you to understand your place as artists in the wider cultural sphere and thereby actively and creatively participate within the ever-changing and challenging field of contemporary culture and societal impacts.

Year 1

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
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Compulsory Modules

You will be required to study the following compulsory modules:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF1065	Introduction to Practice	40	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF1101	Introduction to Cultural Analysis 1	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF1102	Introduction to Cultural Analysis 2	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF1215	Developing Practice	40	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)

Year 2

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
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Compulsory Modules

You will be required to study the following compulsory modules:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF2127	Keywords	20	Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun)
ARTF2130	Defining Your Practice	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF2131	Practice into Public Contexts	40	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)

Optional Modules

You will be required to study 20 credits from either Basket 1 or or Basket 2

Basket 1:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF2055	Variant Modernism: British art in the short 20th Century	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF2069	The Art Market: Moments, Methodologies, Meanings	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF2092	The Museum	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF2094	Art, Power and Portraiture	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF2141	Thinking the Culture Wars: Local and Global Contexts	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)

Basket 2:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF2049	The State of Utopia	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF2052	Showing Asia	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF2147	Art Criticism and its Criticisms	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF2210	Absence, Representation, Violence	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF2211	Art and the Social	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)

You will be required to study 20 credits from either Basket 3 or Basket 4:

Basket 3:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF2140	Earth and Environment in Nineteenth-century British Art	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF2142	Cinema/Post-Cinema	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF2145	Bodies of Difference	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF2146	Professional Opportunities in the Arts Sector	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)

Basket 4:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF2205	Renaissance / Anti-Renaissance: Critical Approaches to Early Modern Art in Europe	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF2208	African Art: Context, Representation, Signification	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF2525	Essaying Feminisms	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
CSER2206	Developing Your Professional Identity: Preparing for a Career in Within The Arts, Heritage and Creative Industries	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
FOAH2030	Computational Art	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)

You can take 20 credits of Discovery modules in place of an option from ONE of any of the baskets.

Discovery Modules

You can take 20 credits of Discovery modules in place of an option from ONE of any of the baskets.

Year 3

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable

Compulsory Modules

Candidates will be required to study the following compulsory modules:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF3131	Practice Towards Exhibition	60	Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun)

Optional Modules

You will be required to study one of the following optional compulsory modules

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF3130	Short Dissertation	40	Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun)
ARTF3170	Dissertation	60	Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun)

If opting for the Short Dissertation, students should choose 20 credits from any of the following baskets, OR choose a Discovery Module.

Basket 1

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF3034	From Trauma to Cultural Memory: The Unfinished Business of Representation and the Holocaust	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF3056	Unmaking Things: Materials and Ideas in the European Renaissance	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF3063	Postcolonial Feminisms	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF3216	The Grand Tour: travels, excavations, collections	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)

Basket 2:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF3003	Deconstruction Reading Politics	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF3042	Cultural Diversity in Museum and Material Culture - Case Study	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF3059	Critical approaches to photography	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF3064	Art, Ecology and Empire	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF3168	Africa and the Atlantic World: History, Historiography and the Visual Arts	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ARTF3212	Art and Existentialism	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)

Basket 3

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF3054	Anthropology, Art and Representation	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF3109	Prehuman to Post-Anthropocene	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF3173	Movies, Migrants and Diasporas	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF3174	Collecting and Curating Popular Culture	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)

Basket 4

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ARTF3099	Antique Dealers: The Market for 'Decorative Art' from Curiosities to Retro	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF3102	After Authoritarianism	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF3211	The Cultural Politics of Artificial Intelligence	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ARTF3215	Engendering East Asia: Feminisms and Contemporary Art	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)

Discovery Modules

Candidates may study 0-20 credits of discovery modules

Last updated: 30/04/2026 15:53:30

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