Bachelor of Arts (Photography) (Honours)

Honours is an opportunity to develop your professional practice through immersion in a year long, self-initiated, inquiry focused, creative project. Over the course of producing this project, you will become familiar with advanced principles and conventions of practice-based research.

You will have access to a range of specialised photographic facilities across the school to support your area of practice, including photography studios, professional capture equipment, post-production editing facilities, computer labs and large format fine art printing technologies.

You will be required to attend on-campus classes throughout the delivery of this degree. 

Learning in this degree uses a variety of teaching and learning approaches, with a major focus on intensive photographic production and workshop practice. The workshops are places in which you will refine and develop your practical, theoretical and conceptual skills through development of an independently generated project proposal negotiated with supervisory staff. 

You will learn in an environment where the politics, meanings and functions of images are examined. Your studies will involve regular engagement in the review, critique and analysis of work through discussion with staff and peers in both individual and group critiques and tutorials.

Independent research forms an integral part of the course structure, focusing on locating and developing your photographic practice within a broader understanding of historical and contemporary photographic narratives and providing a firm foundation for embarking on a career as an independent photographer or as preparation for further advanced study at postgraduate level. This degree produces rounded graduates who are conscious of the ethical, social and cultural implications of their professional choices.

Assessment involves learning by doing, and will include developing a range of project based photographic works, written reflections, oral and visual presentations, proposals and exegesis documents. 

You’ll receive ongoing feedback on the strengths and areas for improvement in your photographic practice from your lecturers and peers.

RMIT has many close links with photographic and aligned creative industries which take a variety of forms. Academics are professional photographers, photo-journalists, artists, editors, writers and curators maintaining strong linkages within national and global photographic practice and the community.

External industry experts and speakers are regularly engaged to speak to students through a number of forums, and international study tours are available.

RMIT holds existing and longstanding partnerships and connections with the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), the Centre for Contemporary Photography, the Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP), regional galleries and many other photographic institutions.

The School of Art has a long tradition in and focus on international engagement. The awards available assist graduates to build international experiences into their practice and emerging careers. The following awards are conferred on those students who demonstrate outstanding art practices and academic achievement.

SITUATE

SITUATE is a residency program in the School for artists, curators and researchers, and honours students (along with postgraduate students) may apply for this program. SITUATE connects people through art by creating onsite real-time opportunities for creative experimentation, cross-cultural dialogue and global mobility. SITUATE manages a series of Reciprocal Residencies where we send RMIT affiliated and Australian artists overseas and receive artists from the partner organisations. Exchanges include:

• The Austrian Arts Residency Exchange
• The Canadian Indigenous Arts Residency Exchange
• The Taiwanese Arts Residency Exchange
• The Japanese Arts Residency Exchange.

Graduate successes have included exhibitions and prizes in Australia, France, Italy, Portugal, the UK, and New Zealand. Honours graduates have had inclusions in national institutions and festivals including the Monash Gallery of Art, the Centre for Contemporary Photography, the Head On Festival, Photo 2201 and the Ballarat Foto Bienalle.

International Artists in Residence program

The School of Art has a longstanding global focus provided through many activities, but particularly the International Artists in Residence (iAIR) program, which provides students with access to international artists and academics who often feature as guest lecturers throughout the year.

You'll have the opportunity to apply for overseas art residencies, which have placed previous students in East China Normal University in Shanghai, China; Krems, Austria; Tokyo Wondersite, Japan; and the University of Lethbridge, Canada.

Other opportunities

RMIT's Global Mobility also supports students to develop and undertake an exchange or a short-term mobility activity during their Honours study through our network of 165 partner universities worldwide.

Using critical enquiry, practice-based research methodologies and 'thinking through making’, the structure of this course allows you to take ownership of your photography education.

You will be allocated a senior academic as a supervisor who will provide support and guidance as you develop your honours project.