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Overview | Summary of Courses

Offered By:	Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Asian Studies, ANU Medical School, Canberra School of Art, and Faculty of Economics and Commerce
Academic Contact:	Dr Martyn Jolly

This workshop major may only be taken in a Bachelor of Visual Arts or a Diploma of Art. 

The Department of Photography and Media Arts provides programs and facilities allowing visual arts students to explore a wide range of visual and conceptual possibilities. Full instruction is provided in the areas of either Photomedia or Digital Media.

The Photomedia Major focuses on the still image and teaches fundamental techniques such as digital and analogue photography; studio lighting; computer manipulation; and other experimental techniques. It also teaches aspects of video production and public and community art. We take our students beyond core photographic competencies and introduce them to the other skills they need to be fully-rounded image-makers in the twenty-first century. Students have access to well equipped colour and black and white darkrooms, a professional lighting studio, a student gallery for exhibitions of art works, generous student work spaces, and specialist research facilities such as an inkjet research facility for wide format printing on a variety of materials. Graduates go on to be practicing visual artists and photographers, to undertake further study and higher degree research; to work in galleries and museums; to train as teachers or lecturers; to set up their own businesses; or to work in the printing, design and publishing businesses.

Photography and Media Arts places great emphasis on professional training. Students learn about applying for grants; working collaboratively; working with large institutions or with the community; project management; the verbal expression of their ideas; and the presentation of professional portfolios and show reels. We don't train our students for just one kind of job, or teach them to work in an already familiar style. Rather we give them both the technical and conceptual tools to develop their own set of interests and an original visual vocabulary. These can then be applied and extended in a wide variety of personal and professional contexts in the creative arts and new media industries. We encourage our students to enrich their ideas and develop their skills by researching the wider cultural context of their work. All our lecturing staff have nationally and internationally recognised careers as artists and media makers, and all have independent research interests in contemporary visual culture.

Graduates from Photography and Media Arts go on to be practicing visual artists, filmmakers, animators, sound artists, and new media artists; to undertake further study and higher degree research (often with scholarships); to work in galleries and museums; to train as teachers or lecturers; to set up their own businesses; to work in the new media, film and animation industry, or in printing, design and publishing businesses; and so on. Many of our graduates travel and work overseas, others find employment in Canberra's many national institutions. Our students place their work in a national and international context. Photography and Media Arts often hosts significant international visiting artist for extended periods of time, and students have the opportunity to study at major art schools in Paris, Berlin, Glasgow, Vancouver, Alberta, Chicago, Kyoto, Valencia and other centres of contemporary art.