Undergraduate Course: Sites and Situations (ARTX10073)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course will expand your knowledge and understanding of the impact of placing work in the public realm through presentations to an external audience. Through participation in an external project, the course will enable you to articulate engagement issues within contemporary art practice. The course will help you to reflect on, and develop, a response to the specific site or situation that you are working within. |
| Course description |
Sites and Situations introduces ways to research, reflect, problem-solve, and create resolved works of art in response to a particular site or situation. This course will expand your understanding of how context is critical to the development, presentation and reading of an artwork. You will work individually and as part of a team whilst engaging with an external organisation, by enrolling on one external project from a variety on offer that are organised by tutors. You will learn how artists work with external partners and contexts, and you will be exposed to the range of professional opportunities that exist through residencies and site-specific, or site-responsive, projects, and commissions. You will produce a finely tuned artwork for presenting to a public audience through continuous reflection, practical experiments, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Towards the end of the project, participation in teamwork will ensure that your group creates a self-organised, public facing event or exhibition in an external setting.
Teaching activities are spread throughout two semesters and will take place every 2-4 weeks in order that you are given ample time to develop concepts and production methods. These include external project site visits, discussions, presentations, tutorials, and input from external partners, as well as whole group talks and workshops. With your tutor, you will have the opportunity to observe in detail a particular site or situation and reflect on the material, contextual, ethical, cultural, social, historical, and environmental aspects associated with it. You will be taught how to use appropriate research methods and how to turn observations into concepts for an artwork, whether that be an image, and object, a performance, an intervention, a sound piece, or any other type of work that is deemed appropriate. You will learn how to articulate your findings and original ideas, initially through the production of a proposal and finally through presenting the work in a real-life situation. By the end of the course, you will be able to identify, and use, appropriate methods and strategies in the creation, presentation, and documentation of an artwork within a specific context.
The possibility for you to develop an individual project exists through consultation with the tutor and Course Organiser.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | Students MUST also take:
Art in Practice 3 (ARTX10072)
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| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | To fully participate in this course students are recommended to budget a minimum of £40.00 in total. £20 of which is for general art materials such as sketchbooks, pens, pencils, paper.
This Course requires additional costs to be met by the Student. Course Organisers will support you in meeting intended learning outcomes while keeping material costs to a minimum, however, depending on your project focus within the course, you may optionally choose to incur costs associated with realising aspects of your work. Such costs are not compulsory, would depend on the nature of your project.
There are also required travel costs associated with field trips of £20 and students should budget to accommodate this cost. |
| Additional Costs | To fully participate in this course students are recommended to budget a minimum of £40.00 in total. £20 of which is for general art materials such as sketchbooks, pens, pencils, paper.
This Course requires additional costs to be met by the Student. Course Organisers will support you in meeting intended learning outcomes while keeping material costs to a minimum, however, depending on your project focus within the course, you may optionally choose to incur costs associated with realising aspects of your work. Such costs are not compulsory, would depend on the nature of your project.
There are also required travel costs associated with field trips of £20 and students should budget to accommodate this cost. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Full Year |
| Course Start Date |
21/09/2026 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
196 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
SUMMATIVE Assessment(s)
This course has 2 summative assessments components:
Project Proposal (30%) submitted in weeks 2-3 and evidencing Learning Outcomes 1 and 2.
Project Report (70%) submitted at the end of the course and evidencing all Learning Outcomes.
All Learning Outcomes must be passed to pass the course, which means Project Report (70%) must be passed in order to pass the course overall.
SUMMATIVE Assessment details
Project Proposal (30%) is 350 - 450 words + minimum of 3 images.
Project Report (70%) is 400 - 500 words + 10 images. |
| Feedback |
FORMATIVE
You will receive feedback and feedforward from the tutor and other students in the external project group during the Project Proposal presentation session. Regular verbal feedback will be given by the tutor during individual tutorials, and by other students during group sessions.
SUMMATIVE
Written feedback on the summative assessment components (Project Proposal and Project Report) will be provided. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate awareness of the concepts and issues that relate to creating a site-responsive artwork in the public realm.
- Evidence appropriate research and production methods for presenting work to an external audience.
- Contextualise and critically evaluate individual practice in relation to staging an external event.
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Reading List
Dezeuze, Anna. (2012) The 'do-it-yourself' Artwork: Participation from Fluxus to New Media. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Doherty, Claire. (2004) Contemporary Art: From Studio to Situation. London: Black Dog Publishing.
Doherty, Claire. (2009) Situation. London: MIT Press.
Morra, Joanne. (2018) Inside the Freud Museums: History, Memory and Site-Responsive Art. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Putman, James. (2001) Art and Artifact: The Museum as Medium, London: Thames & Hudson. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Personal effectiveness
Engagement with the communities and world around them, contributing positively, ethically, and respectfully.
Research and enquiry
Knowledge integration and application: respond to major developments in current and emergent debates and ideas within contemporary art
Personal and intellectual autonomy
Creativity and inventive thinking: make connections between intention, process, outcome, context, and methods of dissemination in contemporary art
Communication
Skilled articulation: enhance understanding of context and to engage effectively with others |
| Keywords | context,site,engagement,external organisations,public |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Zoe Walker
Tel:
Email: z.walker@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Tom Clayton
Tel:
Email: tclayto2@ed.ac.uk |
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