School of Art - Flexible Term Courses 2023

Flexible Term Courses are those courses that are outside the standard Semester 1 and 2 dates. These may include the study tours, courses run over semester breaks, or intensives run throughout the year. 

To add a Flexible Term Course in Enrolment Online, choose the 'Additional Term' UGRD flexible term 2023 tab, select 'add classes', then 'class search' if looking for an elective or applicable year level or school option for BP117 students.

DO NOT SELECT SUMMER, WINTER OR SPRING

For more information about a course, please contact the Studio Lead of the offering studio or the course coordinator if listed.

Please note: although we would like to offer all of the courses below, courses are subject to viability and may not run if numbers are too low.

Course Information

Offering Studio & Studio Lead

Semester Break Courses

This is an intensive course in drawing. It is designed to establish a sound foundation for creating drawn visual imagery from both observation and concepts. You will explore fundamentals of drawing from the figure, the inanimate subject, spatial perspectives and develop these elements in the context of artists' ideas and processes, notions of display and critical feedback.

The course is based within the genres of analytical drawing and visual field drawing and includes a self-directed project that will provide participants with the opportunity to develop resolved drawings combining elements from the previous experiences of the intensive as well as approaches to making and installing from their own area of study. Theoretical and conceptual discussion is an ongoing component of the intensive in addition to videos, reading lists, feedback forms, documentation and group discussions.

Please find link to the course guide. 

Semester Courses

This course invites you to develop a reflective relationship to the knowledge systems of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The course takes a practice-based approach to learning and will actively involve you in thinking about, questioning and exploring a range of responses to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' ways of knowing, being and doing as critical knowledge systems.

A focus on your own subject position and relationship with First Peoples’ sovereignty will be vital in forming a personal response and considering the broader implications of the conceptual frameworks for your creative practice.

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

1. Develop an understanding of creative practice in relation to place, culture and history on unceded land.
2. Critically reflect on and evaluate assumptions, biases and methods in your creative practice in response to your location, situation and relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander custodianship.
3. Through creative practice locate and situate yourself in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge systems.

The course will be delivered collaboratively with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and will include a range of activities including workshops, demonstrations, practical activities, fieldtrips, tutorials, lectures and group discussions.

You will engage in a range of learning activities that explore creative methods for developing an understanding of First Nations perspectives, world views and lifeways as important knowledge systems.

Future Ancestors is a global intensive program taking place in Hanoi in Nov/Dec 2023 which brings together RMIT students from creative disciplines in Melbourne and Hanoi into an interdisciplinary studio where they will work with industry guest mentors on real-world collaborative projects.

The project sets out to explore issues at the intersection of contemporary creative practice and questions of cultural heritage. Our starting point is to speculate about the city – Hanoi – in 25 years time, and ask what role creative practitioners might play in preserving and/or creating ‘future heritage’. Effectively, we ask, how can we be ‘good ancestors’ through our practices?

We will be introduced to contemporary debates in this field through a series of guest lectures from leading thinkers and makers (online, throughout November), with particular emphasis on questions of intangible cultural heritage in storytelling, craft and lens-based practices. Students will then have the opportunity to take part in real-world, transdisciplinary and industry-connected projects in and around Hanoi for two weeks (27 Nov- 9 Dec 2023) while also participating in the Vietnam Festival of Creativity and Design. 

Each small team will be made up of students and staff from both Melbourne and Hanoi along with industry guest mentors and get involved in a specific project including: 

• Weaving the Future: Sustainable Textile Craft and Fashion Design in Việt Nam 
• Extending Heritage: XR & Expanded Imaging for communication 
• Inner-city Commute: How do questions of history, urban design, climate change and inclusivity influence movement around the city now and into the future?