Faculty of Art & Design

1. The faculty

The Faculty of Art & Design aims to prepare students for professional level art and design practice. A very broad range of studies is offered, both undergraduate and postgraduate, from traditional studio arts to designing for the Web and the electronic (or digital) art of emerging media. Monash is one of the few tertiary art institutions in Australia to include art and design within the same faculty.

The faculty's administration and many of the purpose-designed studios and teaching facilities are centred on an architecturally distinctive building at Caulfield campus. The range of undergraduate and graduate programs and subjects is offered across three campuses - Caulfield, Gippsland and Berwick, with some studies offered in external mode. The courses are managed within four departments - Fine Arts, Design, Multimedia and Digital Arts and Theory of Art & Design - and a centre at the Gippsland campus known as the Gippsland Centre for Art and Design. At the Berwick campus, the Bachelor of Multimedia Systems is managed jointly by the Faculty of Information Technology and the Faculty of Art and Design.

Double-degree programs are run in conjunction with Mechanical Engineering -Bachelor of Engineering/Bachelor of Design (Industrial Design), and with the Faculty of Education - Bachelor of Visual Arts/Bachelor of Education (primary) and Bachelor of Visual Arts/Bachelor of Education (secondary). The faculty also has teaching links to overseas Monash campuses, in particular Kings' College, London and Prato, Italy; and Centres, such as its affiliation with CENFAD (Center for Advanced Design), in Malaysia.

The faculty's two galleries - the Faculty Gallery at Caulfield and the Switchback Gallery at Gippsland - function as an integral part of the faculty's program. They exhibit works of internationally recognised artists and designers, as well as the work of the faculty's own advanced students and staff. The folio submissions of art and design students for the degrees of Masters by Research and PhD are also exhibited in the Faculty Gallery. A Visiting Artist/Designer Program, which includes residencies, provides further interaction for students with visiting artists, designers and curators.

The faculty has approximately 1,200 students mostly located at the Caulfield campus, and of whom 236 are postgraduates. There are 40 academic staff in the faculty.

Staff are generally also practicing artists or designers in their own right.

More information about:

• Faculty of Art & Design
• Courses listed in the Monash University handbook 

Studies

All students within the faculty undertake core subjects in theory and history of art and design, drawing and professional practice. Most students also study digital imaging.

Most courses, though supported by compulsory and elective subjects, are structured around studio programs, which involve the active participation of students while acquiring the ideas, body of knowledge, techniques and problem-solving skills necessary to their discipline.

In all studios the benchmark of full professional status is the honours courses and students are strongly encouraged to seek entry to them and where appropriate to take postgraduate courses.

A foundation year is also offered - Diploma of Art & Design Studies specifically designed to prepare for entry into first or second year of undergraduate studies in the Faculty of Art and Design.

The Faculty of Art and Design offers students from other faculties the opportunity to undertake single elective studies within a range of art and  design disciplines.

The Studio areas (which may make up major or minor studies), as they are organized within the four departments and the Gippsland Centre for Art & Design, can be broadly described as follows:

Fine arts (Caulfield)

• Drawing Studio: Caters for all students within the faculty and covers all forms of drawing from perceptual to creative and experimental. Perceptual drawing is regarded as core training, being the basis of a visual language, the ability to control space and form.
• Painting Studio: Painting remains a medium through which artists can explore individual imagery and broader themes from contemporary culture. Basic skills, including drawing, form, composition and colour, form the basis for originality in perception and expression. New and traditional areas of fine arts practice are integrated to create emerging forms such as digital, conceptual and installation art.
• Printmaking Studio: Printmaking methods or processes such as etching, lithography, silkscreen, linocut, collage, drypoint, woodcut and collograph are studied, as well as photography and digital imagery. Combinations of the printmaking processes with these latter two allow for further exploration and creativity, especially for honours and graduate students.
• Sculpture Studio: Sculpture requires a technical understanding of materials and techniques as well as creative ability. Skills begin with training in the use of equipment, machinery and traditional sculptural materials (clay, wood, plaster and metals) and the translation of ideas into 3D form, such as model-making. The techniques used to realise a concept vary from traditional to contemporary, e.g. digital 3D modelling and virtual space.
• Tapestry Studio: Tapestry is both an ancient craft with a rich tradition, and a contemporary visual form, with its pixel-like structure. It is both painterly in its use of colour, form and composition to depict images and ideas, and tactile. Students learn to experiment with less conventional materials, mixed media and with individual means of expression. The Tapestry Studio has connections with the Victorian Tapestry Workshop. It runs its own drawing program in addition to the compulsory drawing studio taken by all art and design students.
• Visual Arts Studio: Allows cross-disciplinary studies within Fine Arts, and electives from within the faculty or outside it.
• Ceramics Studio: Including vessel making or sculptural ceramics, and experimental techniques of working with different types of clay (such as porcelain, stoneware, paper clay), of glaze formulae and techniques and of different kilns and firing. Work may equally include mixed media, such as paper, wire, fabric, glass beads or timber.
• Glass Studio: Covers all aspects of the practical, aesthetic and analytical skills required for glass practice, whether molten glass such as glass-blowing, or kiln-forming and kiln-casting glass or sculpted glass.
• Metals and Jewellery Studio: Contemporary disciplines linked to the traditional crafts of gold and silver-smithing. Includes jewellery, tableware and other small-scale objects crafted from metals, wood, plastics and other materials. Students learn to develop a concept and how to craft intricate objects to realise it, using their understanding of form, materials and technology.

Design (Caulfield)

• Design Studio: Deals with interdisciplinary design, aiming to equip multi-skilled designers with a combination of 2D and 3D capabilities. Graphics, corporate identity design, packaging design and signage may be applied to the design of, for instance, furniture or aesthetically and functionally appealing products.
• Industrial Design Studio: Product design, covering all aspects of the development of well-designed products, including an understanding of the manufacturing process, materials and marketing required. The Design Studio is complemented by subjects such as engineering, ergonomics, marketing, visual communication, model making and 3D product computer simulation. Automotive concept design is another area covered.
• Interior Architecture Studio: Requires the application of the principles of related disciplines - architecture, building and materials science. Interior architecture includes the design of a variety of commercial spaces - retail spaces, workplace and recreation environments - besides exhibition spaces, stage and theatre design, film and TV and virtual spaces.
• Multimedia and Photomedia Studio: Deals with all aspects of communication via the digital media, such as the Web, CDROM and DVD from design to programming, or from 3D animation to digital photography. Requires integration of digital sound, images, text and interactivity.
• Visual Communication (Graphic Design) Studio: Deals with the visual forms which have become part of everyday life, whether multimedia and new forms of electronic communication, or the more traditional areas of practice such as advertising, publishing, packaging and corporate design. It requires the skill to integrate the use of 2D and 3D visual forms, besides skills in typography, layout and digital imaging. Magazine cover design is a case in point.

Theory of Art & Design (Caulfield)

• These studies underpin all the studio work of the faculty by assisting students to develop the ideas and concepts necessary to locate their work within an intellectual framework. The aim is to enable artists and designers to assess where their work sits in relation to history, theory and critical discourse. From this base, they are better able to articulate its significance to critics, curators and wider audiences. There are more than 20 theory units available including, Modernism and visual challenge, Critical issues in design, History and criticism of interiors and furniture, Asian art and design and its influence in Europe, Aesthetics and art practice, Multimedia and society.

Gippsland Centre for Art & Design

The Bachelor of Visual Arts provides a broader range of studio options than traditional fine arts studies. It includes Studios in:

• Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture, Photography and Ceramics, including specialist woodfiring facilities.
• The Graduate Diploma of Arts (Visual Arts) can be studied off-campus by flexible delivery mode. Masters and doctoral degree studies are also offered.
• The Switchback Gallery operates as a cultural focal point for the regional community as well as for the Centre.

Berwick

The Bachelor of Multimedia Systems, jointly offered by the Faculty of Information Technology and the Faculty of Art and Design, includes Studio practice in developing multimedia systems and products.

Research in the faculty

Research in the faculty is very varied, reflecting a wide range of teaching areas and interests. This diversity is reflected by the variety of design awards and art prizes won by students and staff.

Research in art and design means understanding and furthering some aspect of the creative process. Artists studying at this level are responsible for making an artistic contribution of substantial cultural significance in their chosen area. Innovation in art and design is cultivated in the faculty with a special sympathy for individuals' artistic processes. Most of the faculty's research students are first and foremost artists and designers. In most cases the outcome of their sustained research projects is an exhibition. Research degrees such as Master of Fine Arts or PhD are assessed mainly by exhibition - representing the culmination of the students' visual research - supported by documentation. Research degrees can be undertaken in all major studios.

Research degrees offered - Master of Fine Arts, Master of Design, Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy.
Coursework degrees offered - Master of Multimedia, Master of Multimedia Design, Master of Design, Master of Visual Arts.

Principal research areas include:
Fine Arts/Visual Arts - painting, drawing, printmedia, sculpture, installation, tapestry, clay studies, ceramics, glass, architectural ceramics and glass, metals and jewellery, digital imaging, photomedia, conceptual art.
Design - visual communication/graphic design, illustration; interior architecture, product design, transport design, furniture design, computer-aided design (CAD), industrial design engineering.
Multimedia and Digital Arts - multimedia design, multimedia, photomedia, digital imaging.
Theory of Art & Design - psychology of art and design, European and Australian visual culture, Asian art, art criticism, aesthetics, history of art, history of design, art and contemporary society.

Some recent areas of research interests and specialisation within the faculty are:

• Theory of art and design: Art criticism (Pascall Prize for criticism of visual art, won November 2000 by Dr Robert Nelson); History and theory of specific styles/periods.
• Ceramic design: Glaze formulation and development. Research in wood-fired ceramics and kilns, e.g. Anagama kilns. The relevance of ceramic technology to archaeology (Society for American Archaeology's Award for Excellence in Ceramics: Dr. Owen Rye).
• Industrial Design: Product design, including recent work for Hardie Industries; Automotive concept development.
• Multimedia Design: Art and design of digital media; animation; DVD, CDROM and Web design. Cinemedia Digital Media Fund Grant to develop digital artwork for Platform 1,
• Federation Square.
• Graphic Design: Cover design (Print magazine cover awards); the social and design ramifications of a new flag (Vexillography); innovative packaging design (Southern Cross Packaging Awards).
• Fine arts: Perceptual drawing and painting; Figurative practice; Printmaking. Perspective, for example, perspective rule-bending as used by Caravaggio (a computer-aided and 3D model exploration); Tapestry bibliography (ARC Grant). Teams of tapestry weavers have interpreted the work of major Australian and international artists into tapestry for the Victorian Tapestry Workshop

2. General policy statement

The Collection Development Policy covers printed books and journals, electronic resources, multimedia and any other formats acquired for the Library's collection.

The Policy is regularly monitored to ensure that the selection and acquisition of new resources supports the teaching and research needs of the faculties and their departments. While every effort is made to meet known information needs some gaps in the collection may develop which need attention, and suggestions to address them are welcome. This may be done through liaison with library staff or, for individual titles, using the recommendation form at lib.monash.edu.au/forms/acquisition-request.doc

To ensure that the library provides collection materials to support new courses and subjects, completion of a Library Impact Statement lib.monash.edu.au/forms/impact.doc is required. When establishing new research directions staff are encouraged to liaise with the library about the provision of supporting information resources.

All titles listed as prescribed or recommended reading for teaching subjects are acquired as high priority and in multiple copies depending on student enrolment numbers. This is particularly necessary for undergraduate students, who need access to adequate resources on their home campus. Electronic versions of these texts are also provided where possible, so that access is more readily available regardless of location and number of copies held. The inter-campus loan and photocopy services for undergraduates further support the needs of those students.

However, the library cannot acquire every item that could conceivably be needed by Monash staff or students. The reciprocal borrowing scheme enables Monash library users to borrow from other university libraries. Post-graduates and staff may also use the document delivery service to obtain books and articles from other libraries in Australia and overseas.

3. The library's collection

a. Location

The bulk of the material purchased for the faculty is on the Caulfield campus, where the majority of students and staff are located. However, the collection at Gippsland is significant. There is a smaller amount of material still at the Peninsula campus to support the art teaching program of the Faculty of Education , but the courses formerly taught there by the Faculty of Art and Design have been transferred to the Caulfield campus. A print collection has been started at the Berwick campus.

Items purchased for the discipline of Visual Culture, in the School of Literary, Visual and Cultural Studies (Faculty of Arts) in the areas of art, art history, architecture, film and photography are located in the Matheson Library on the Clayton campus. The emphasis of materials purchased for this School is on the history, theory and philosophy of the arts, rather than art practice.

Materials purchased on behalf of the Faculty of Engineering in the area of ceramic technologies are located in the Hargrave-Andrew Library, also at the Clayton campus. Materials purchased for the Faculty of Engineering to support ergonomics and CAD/CAM, as well as materials purchased for the Faculty of Information Technology to support computer graphics, can be found at the Caulfield Library and the Hargrave-Andrew Library.

b. Language

In general, material in the English language is acquired; however, where the primary purpose of the material is as a visual resource, language is immaterial.

c. Classification used

The library's collections relevant to Art and Design, in all formats, are classified using the Dewey Decimal Classification. For historical reasons, the treatment of works on and about individual artists differs between campuses. At Caulfield and Gippsland libraries, works on individual artists have been generally classified with the form of the art. This follows the 21^st edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification, and reflects the emphasis at these two campuses on art and design practice. So, ceramics and the major exponents of ceramics are found at 738, painters and painting at 759.

The exception (again, following Dewey) is the use of 709 for comprehensive publications on artists who are noted for work across a number of mediums: Leonardo da Vinci for instance, Michelangelo, and Picasso. So, a publication dealing with Michelangelo's work as a whole would be found at 709; whereas, one dealing specifically with his drawings will be found at 741, with other works on drawing.

At the Matheson Library, with its art historical emphasis, the 16^th edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification has been used, resulting in all works on particular artists - and thus a large proportion of the collection - being classified in the 709s, regardless of form of art. Under this scheme, all works on Michelangelo are classified together, regardless of whether his drawings, paintings or sculpture are being discussed.

d. Formats

No format is excluded. Monographs and serials, both print and electronic are the main sources. However, there are significant numbers of videorecordings, exhibition catalogues, some slides, prints and kits and increasing numbers of DVDs. Single slides are not acquired for either the Caulfield or Gippsland Library. The faculty's Department of Fine Arts, based at Caulfield, and Centre for Art and Design at Gippsland, each have an extensive collection of slides, acquired for the use of staff and students. At Clayton, the Faculty of Arts' School of Literary, Visual and Performance Studies keeps a very good collection of visual resource material, largely for teaching and research purposes.

e. Size of the collection

Estimated number of monograph volumes purchased per annum : approximately 2060

Number of print serial titles received : almost 200 current serial titles are received, with the majority of these being located at the Caulfield campus.

f. Significant electronic resources

The library is purchasing increased numbers of resources in electronic format, including  internet databases and full text resources, including suites of electronic journals. As a result, an increasing proportion of the budget for library material for the Faculty of Art & Design is spent on these resources.

These include:

Indexing and abstracting services

• Bibliography of the History of Art,
• Australian Visual Arts Database (AVAD4),
• Design and Applied Arts Index,
• ArtBibliographies Modern,
• Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals.
• AustArt

Fulltext databases / electronic journal suites

• Art full text
• The Grove Dictionary of Art,
• Expanded Academic ASAP (over 1,500 journals, of which approximately 520 are in full text),
• Project Muse (over 100 journals).
• Australian Public Affairs Full Text (indexes Australian art journals)
• Elsevier ScienceDirect
• Building Code of Australia

Subject gateways :

• Monash library's Art & Design faculty team page 
• ADAM (Art, Design and Media, UK, being developed),
• Major gallery sites, such as National Gallery of Art, Washington; National Gallery, London, Artsource.

14% of the library materials budget for the Faculty of Art & Design is spent on serials and 5.5% on electronic resources.

g. Coverage of the collection

The library resources acquired for the faculty cover in general all areas of the Dewey Decimal Classification from 700 to 779 and include fine and decorative arts in general, civic and landscape art, architecture, sculpture, drawing and decorative arts, painting, graphic arts and photography.

Visual source material may be - and is - found throughout the collection: a fact of which the potential user, as much as the collection developer, needs to be aware. Material aimed at use by the practicing artist or designer provides the richest resource when concentrated with related material.

The main areas of collecting for the Faculty of Art & Design are detailed below

Caulfield and Gippsland libraries have the largest collections, although Matheson Library has a very significant collection relating particularly to art history and theory.

Caulfield Library has strength in contemporary arts and artists and in design, including Industrial Design. It attempts to collect to research level in these areas. It has a good collection (to research level) in most areas of the applied arts, for instance jewellery and metals (including gold and silver smithing), ceramics, glass (hot/molten and blown or cold glass) and crafts.

Visual communication (graphic arts) is strongly collected, as are photography (both traditional and digital), painting, drawing and sculpture, and particular periods or styles of art, for instance, Surrealism. There is a good collection on women artists.

The area of Ergonomics/Human Factors can be regarded as a strength of Monash library as a whole, as a result of overlapping interests by, for instance, Industrial Design and Engineering.

The design area in general, both theory and practice and including Industrial Design, is strongly represented.

Gippsland library has a good, broad collection relating to contemporary art practice, with an emphasis on ceramics, printmaking, photography, sculpture and art theory. The collection there is estimated at 4,000 volumes.

Multimedia and the related areas of Computer graphics and animation are strongest on Caulfield, Berwick and Clayton campuses. The area benefits from the convergence of interests of the IT and Art & Design Faculties. However, these are constantly changing subject areas, where information must be current and, therefore, requires constant collecting emphasis.

Interior Architecture, as a teaching area, is new to Monash University, although the history and theory of architecture has been collected in the past by both Clayton and Caulfield libraries. It requires greater collecting emphasis, along with the related areas of architecture in general and building construction.

The library looks to collect in all technical areas required to support the various art and design practices taught, but collects selectively trade manuals and trade publications, and collects only lightly publications aimed at the hobby artist or craftsperson.

4. Other significant Monash collections or resources

Faculty Gallery, at Caulfield and the Switchback Gallery, at Gippsland campus play a vital role in the faculty's program (as discussed above.) Both serve to connect the faculty and its students with the wider art world.

Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA): this is one of the larger public galleries within the Melbourne metropolitan area. Its exhibition program and the university collection have a strong focus on Australian art post 1960. The gallery maintains files, including reviews, articles and exhibition catalogues on artists represented in gallery exhibitions and in the university collection. MUMA 

Rare Books collection: This houses a numbers of separate collections of relevance, including Art and photography, pulp series, science fiction and comics. Rare Books  

Music and Multimedia Collection: Within this Collection housed in the Matheson Library (Clayton campus) are the Alinari Photo Collection, a set of 1339 fiche of art and architectural works from the 19^th century; the Early Alinari Archives (122 fiche), the architectural Drawings of Robert and James Adam in Sir John Soane's museum (11 reels), and the Wallace Collection, London (74 fiche). Music and Multimedia Collection

Faculty of Art & Design collections: As discussed above (Section 3.d) the faculty holds large collections of slides, mainly for teaching and research purposes, at both Caulfield and the Gippsland Centre for Art & Design, and students have some access to these collections.

The Department of Visual Arts, School of Literary, Visual and Performance Studies at Clayton, in the Faculty of Arts, holds a substantial collection of slides and visual material, largely for teaching and research by the department.

Collections Table

(T = teaching level, R = research level)

Amendment history

March 2004

First issued

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