Overview
Syllabus overview
The Visual Arts 11–12 Syllabus aligns with the Visual Arts Life Skills 11–12 Syllabus to provide opportunities for integrated delivery.
Through collaborative curriculum planning, it may be decided that Life Skills outcomes and content are the most appropriate option for some students with intellectual disability.
Organisation of Visual Arts 11–12
The organisation of Visual Arts 11–12 illustrates the central role of and relationships between Practice, Artworld concepts and Viewpoints across Years 11 and 12, and how they are interrelated and established in Art making, and Art criticism and art history.
In the Year 11 course students make artworks and critically interpret the world of Visual Arts through engagement and application of areas of Practice, Artworld concepts and Viewpoints, in increasingly integrated ways in Art making, and Art criticism and art history. In the Year 12 course, students create a body of work and critically interpret the world of Visual Arts through engagement with their understanding of Practice and an application of Artworld concepts and Viewpoints in integrated and increasingly relational ways in Art making and Art criticism and art history.
Figure 1 shows the organisation of Visual Arts 11–12.
Image long description: The 2 focus areas Art making and Art criticism and art history are shown twice each in boxes at the top and bottom of the diagram, which are labelled Year 11 and Year 12, respectively. The words Practice, Artworld concepts and Viewpoints appear in the centre of the diagram, in a box that overlaps with both the Year 11 and the Year 12 focus areas.
Practice, Artworld concepts and Viewpoints
Practice, Artworld concepts and Viewpoints provide the practical and theoretical content in Art making and Art criticism and art history in Year 11 and Year 12.
In the Year 11 course students engage with Practice, Artworld concepts and Viewpoints to provide a broad base of understanding that enables them to develop and apply their knowledge, understanding and skills in and about the visual arts. In the Year 12 course students build on the knowledge, understanding and skills of the Year 11 course through deeper and sustained investigations of Practice, Artworld concepts and Viewpoints with increasing autonomy.
Each of these aspects of content, Practice, Artworld concepts and Viewpoints, can be considered in their own right and in relation to each other. Student inquiries should draw attention to the concepts and practical applications of these concepts and skills in ways that contribute to a more interrelated understanding as students move towards conceptual and technical autonomy.
Practice is a body of knowledge that supports students to examine how and why practitioners including artists, designers, curators, critics and historians engage with art in contemporary and historical contexts. Students explore and interpret the actions, intentions, decisions and creative judgements of a range of artists, their contributions to the visual arts, and the dynamic and evolving nature of practice and the artworld at a certain time and over time. The study of Practice supports students to explain the conventions, strategies, and routines practitioners engage when making artworks and constructing critical interpretations and historical accounts about art.
The Artworld concepts are situated within a relational network which provides an explanatory framework students use to investigate and interpret artworld practices, meanings and phenomena. This framework provides a means for students to explain the functional relationships and transactions among the artist, artwork, audience and world.
Each Viewpoint provides a particular way to interpret Practice and the different functional and intentional relationships between the Artworld concepts. The intentions and motives involved in the production, display and reception of art are considered in relation to interpretations of the functions and roles of the Artworld concepts at different times, places and value systems.
Interpretations using the Subjective viewpoint frame relationships between artists, artworks, audiences and the world through felt, sensory, emotional and psychological states. From this perspective various formative contexts concerned with personal beliefs and associations, the subconscious and the imaginary inform the intentions of, and contribute to, the function of artists and audiences including critics, historians and curators.
Interpretations using the Structural viewpoint frame practitioners as producing artworks and critical interpretations and historical accounts that represent the world using systems of signs and symbols that share a visual language read by artists and audiences for meaning. From this perspective, artists work within conventions of representation that imbue materials, techniques and imagery with communicative value.
Interpretations using the Cultural viewpoint frame particular social, economic and political conditions in the world as explanatory contexts for understanding art. From this perspective practitioners reflect, produce and are influenced by or react to particular social experiences of the world. Audiences including critics, historians and curators are interpreted as sharing a similar, socially contextual, set of relationships conditioned by the world.
Interpretations using the Contemporary viewpoint frame and position artworld relationships as complex reconfigurations, replications, contradictions and challenges to historical and current narratives of art and representations of the world that is responsive to emergent social, cultural and critical theory including the post structural, the posthuman, postcolonial and relational aesthetics. From this perspective art practices deal with the manipulation of time and history, ideas, subject matter, audiences, pushing boundaries and the shifts challenging established ideology and orthodoxies.
Protocols for collaborating with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities and engaging with Cultural works
NESA is committed to working in partnership with Aboriginal Communities and supporting teachers, schools and schooling sectors to improve educational outcomes for young people.
It is important to respect appropriate ways of interacting with Aboriginal Communities and Cultural material when teachers plan, program and implement learning experiences that focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Priorities.
Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) protocols need to be followed. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ ICIP protocols include Cultural Knowledges, Cultural Expression and Cultural Property and documentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ identities and lived experiences. It is important to recognise the diversity and complexity of different Cultural groups in NSW, as protocols may differ between local Aboriginal Communities.
Teachers should work in partnership with Elders, parents, Community members, Cultural Knowledge Holders, or a local, regional or state Aboriginal Education Consultative Group. It is important to respect Elders and the roles of men and women. Local Aboriginal Peoples should be invited to share their Cultural Knowledges with students and staff when engaging with Aboriginal histories and Cultural Practices.