Program Statement 2005
(The MA Program in Environmental Art was launched in the Fall semester of 2004 by Prof. Markku Hakuri. I joined the program for its first semester and worked with Prof. Hakuri to establish the mission and structure of the program, as well as teaching a large portion of its course offering – the full course program is shown further down. )
The degree program in Environmental Art challenges students to develop advanced artistic and conceptual skills for a wide range of spatial practices. It explores the truth of human scale in a changing environment, and fosters a creative/critical engagement with the surroundings that shape our human experience. Land art, installation art, site-specific, public art, community process, street performance, social critique and urbanist intervention – all these, and others, make up a field that finds the content of art in its contexts, and that joins the impulse for ecological preservation with the urgent concern to understand the new physical, social and information spaces of our globalized reality.
This program prepares students to pursue their work in a variety of professional fields, whether as independent artists or as collaborators in projects involving installation, landscape design, urban planning or community development. Furthermore, it is assumed that students and graduates will be instrumental in pioneering new ways for artists to influence how our environments are designed and used.
Lasting two years and comprising 60 (120ECTs) credits, the program consists of studies leading to the Master of Arts degree. The core of the program consists of the joint studies of all the MA programs of the School of Visual Culture (60ECTs), studies specific to the degree program (30ECTs), auxiliary or minor subject studies (30ECTs), and submission of a final diploma work (40ECTs included in joint studies).
The purpose of the MA program in Environmental Art is to train students to react independently, intelligently and bravely to the questions of environment. This requires heightening awareness of many kinds of space (bodily, natural, technological; social, psychological, informational), and learning to discern the constraints and possibilities of a given situation. It also involves developing the craft skills to execute high-quality work, the conceptual and organizational skills to conceive and plan it, and the research and critical thinking skills to develop an informed position from which to work.
Studies in the degree program include intensive workshops, semester-long seminars, special lectures and tours to relevant sites. Students may work in almost any medium, and are invited to take a broad approach to the challenges and opportunities of environmental art.
Environmental Art MA -program (120 ECTS)
Degree structure
1.year |
2.year |
fall |
fall |
| Orientation 2 ECTS | Workshop 4- 8 ECTS |
| Environmental Art Backgrounds 4 ECTS | Diploma research seminar 3 ECTS |
| Lecture series 2 ECTS | Free of choice studies 10 ECTS |
| Making sense, 4 ECTS | |
| Workshop 4-8 ECTS | |
| Free of choice studies 10 ECTS | |
spring |
spring |
| Environmental Art Contexts 4 ECTS | Diploma research seminar 3 ECTS |
| Making sense 4 ECTS | Diplomawork 20 cr |
| workshop 4 -8 ECTS | |
| Free of choice studies 10 ECTS |
Program Content
Common obligatory studies of the school 25 SP
Xxxxx Image 4 Sp
Objectives:
Content:
Time: fall, 1st year
Teaching methods:
Teacher: PhD Alan Prohm.
Evaluation: Pass–fail.
Xxxxx Connections 4 Sp
Objectives: This is a seminar course, and the objective is to introduce students with the central 20th-century phenomena in the fine arts as well as the ideologies behind the phenomena.
Content: Fine arts phenomena are not studied as individual and separate areas-they are connected with, for example, philosophical backgrounds and parallel phenomena within the sphere of art. The emphasis is not on ‘isms’ predefined by art history, but rather on the phenomena which define art and which can be identified throughout various ‘isms’, connecting them and appearing in different forms. The purpose is to elucidate varying dimensions of modern art in particular, including postmodern trends.
Time: fall, 1st year
Teaching methods: Weekly seminar sessions, for which students receive a text to read before class.
Teacher: Ossi Naukkarinen and Yrjänä Levanto
Evaluation: Pass–fail. Requires 80% attendance and reading of all literature specified.
Xxxxx Aesthetics exam 4 Sp
Objectives:
Content:
Time: fall, 1st year
Teaching methods:
Teacher: Ossi Naukkarinen and Yrjänä Levanto
Evaluation: Pass–fail.
Xxxxx Critical writing and Research Method 13 sp
Objectives:
– To engage students in a creative and critical writing practice that supports their development and professionalization as artists.
– To improve basic writing skills for both native and non-native speakers of English.
– To develop writing, thinking, oral presentation and research skills directly relevant to the MA diploma work. – To decide and clarify the subject of the diploma work.
– To prepare a detailed research plan.
– Research methods in theory and praxis in visual culture
Content:
– Journaling, artist’s statements, project descriptions, articulations of conceptual interest, creative process, theoretical position and aesthetic experience.
– Journaling, essay writing, oral presentations, proposal writing, web portfolio design, basic research techniques and planning.
Time: fall & spring 1st year, fall 2nd year
Teacher: PhD Alan Prohm and XX
Evaluation: Pass–fail.
Degree Programme specific obligatory main subject studies 70 SP
xxxxx Personal Plan 1 sp
Objectives:
Content:
Time: fall, 1st year
Teaching methods:
Teacher: Markku Hakuri
Evaluation: Pass–fail.
Xxxxx Workshops required minimum 20 ECTS
Objectives: Workshops involve intensive practical study. They take place all around Finland and demand high levels of activity and commitment. The idea is to develop students’ process-oriented working methods and communication skills.
Content: Students produce plans and visualizations for their environmental ideas. Workshops always conclude with an exhibition, either in the local community or at the University of Art and Design (and often in both places).
Time: 1st year
Teacher: professor Markku Hakuri and other fine artists.
Evaluation: Pass–fail.
Xxxxx Environmental Art Backgrounds 4 ECTS
Objectives: To understand the historical background of the environmental arts and establish a critical vocabulary for approaching them in both theory and practice.
Content: The emergence of modern environmental arts (land art, site-specificity, installation art, urbanist practices, etc…), out of mid-20th Century experimentalism in Europe and the US. Major trends of development from the 1960’s to the present. Brief consideration also of environmental art’s ancient history (early human practices of land-marking and ritual building), and of its recent pre-history (in European romanticism, 19th C. public art, and early modernism).
Time: fall, 1st year
Teacher: PhD Alan Prohm
Evaluation: Pass–fail.
Xxxxx Diploma Research Seminar 5 ECTS
Objectives: To support 2nd year MA students in carrying out the research, writing and presentation of their diploma work. To support students completing the writing and documentation for their MA diploma work.
Content: Group discussion and individual guidance in finding sources, choosing methods, conducting and recording research, deciding presentational format, and writing. Students meet weekly to discuss their progress, present their work as it nears completion and receive feedback on their evolving texts and final presentation.
Time: fall & spring, 2nd year
Teacher: PhD Alan Prohm
Evaluation: Pass–fail.
Xxxxx Diploma work 40 ECTS
Diploma work consists of a special project work and a written thesis. The diploma work is a means by which students can prove their:
– capacity for independent thinking and creative problem solving
– understanding of the issues and techniques of environmental art
– ability to conceive, plan and skillfully execute a demanding project
– mastery of the various tools and materials required by the final work
– readiness for further advanced studies at the Doctor of Arts level
Time: spring, 2nd year
Teacher: professor Markku Hakuri
Evaluation: 0–5.
Optional studies 25 ECTS
Optional studies can include a minor subject or it could bee chosen from various courses either in environmental art, fine art or in some other field of the University curricular. Courses can also be taken from another university instead of UIAH with the flexible study right agreement (JOO). The professor or the study counselor will help in choices regarding the studies and to make a personal plan for studies.
Alan Prohm 