Bachelor Fine Arts

Year 1 consists of a thorough introduction to basic visual and artistic skills, techniques, and knowledge: you work as a group in the KABK workshops, supervised by accomplished instructors and teachers. Theoretical and practical training are closely related. By the end of the year, you have practiced and gained insight and proficiency in basic visual and other artistic practices. You have built a shared frame of reference, as well as explored artistic research, collaboration, and peer learning.

In the second year, the emphasis is on actively connecting your own artistic work with broader social, historical, technical, and professional contexts. In addition to your personal development, you learn how to collaborate as a professional artist: with whom, why, and how can this be set in motion? You share your own, previously acquired knowledge and experiences and use them in the development of group projects. You may participate in a range of non-mandatory courses, lectures and excursions offered within the Fine Art department and the KABK. By the end of the year, you have developed an understanding of your imaging capacities in relation to your interests and ambitions and are able to relate these insights to broad perspectives.

Year three is about professionalisation. The possibilities and conditions of professional contemporary artistry are explored and questioned, and connection is actively sought with professional worlds outside the arts. In addition to the individual studio work, you explore opportunities to do a (research) internship, residency or exchange outside the academy in the first semester. You make a plan and search for an appropriate working place. In the second semester, the internship, residency or exchange takes place. At the end, you produce a detailed report, and you present the results of your outside stay in the Fine Art Spring Exhibition. All this will serve as a starting point for your final exam project in year 4.

The aim of the final exam year is to learn to produce art at a professional level within a context that's relevant to it. You design your own working process and may consult teachers from within the Fine Art department. Next to the creation of your visual/artistic work, the final exam involves a theoretical part in the form of a joint publication by the entire graduating group. You participate in the Graduation Show.