Exploring Northern Ireland

Overview

This module will provide students with an opportunity to engage with and analyse the broad range of cultural events on offer in Northern Ireland. In addition to weekly visits to cultural venues and activities across the arts (potentially including plays, films, dance, musical performances, poetry readings, author talks, and museum and gallery exhibitions), the module will feature visits from figures across the NI cultural landscape, offering insights not only into the works themselves, but also into the structures, funding, and landscape of art production in NI (as well as the UK in general and the Republic of Ireland).

Students will be expected to keep a regular writing journal following each event, with four of those entries developed and anthologised into the final project for the class.

Learning Objectives

Having completed this module, you should:

Be familiar with the major artistic/cultural institutions in Belfast and Northern Ireland.
Understand the basics of the cultural funding model in Northern Ireland.
Be able to analyse artworks across various media, both in their own right and in their contemporary Northern Irish cultural contexts.
Understand how the artistic landscape of Northern Ireland relates to that of the other nations of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Skills

Research and analytical skills
Communication and speech
Interacting with others
Artistic analysis
Critical thinking

Assessment

None