The course in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Art has three main aims:

1. Provide students with basic geographical and historical frameworks for the study of indigenous visual arts in Australia and the Torres Strait Islands.

2. Familiarise students with concepts that indigenous peoples have expressed as fundamental to their understandings of relationships between art and life, both historically and in a contemporary context.

3. Assist students in developing ideas about how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual arts contribute to cross-cultural critical theory.

By the end of this course you should be able to:

1. Identify historical and geographical origin of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island art

2. Conduct a culturally relevant appreciation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island visual arts

3. To formulate cross-cultural awareness in the processes of interpretation of visual arts

4. Research and access information on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island art

5. Speak and write with cultural sensitivity and confidence on Australian Indigenous art

Students must submit and perform all assessment tasks in order to complete the course.  Failure to submit assessment items by the last day of the exam period and perform assessment tasks on schedule will result in an NCN.

Oral presentation and paper - 2,000 words (25%) (LO 1,2,3,4,5)

Research essay - 3,500 words (45%), (LO 1,2,3,4,5)

End of semester visual test (20%) (LO 1,2,5)

Tutorial participation (10%) (LO 1,3,5)

The course consists of two 1 hour lectures, one 1 hour tutorial, and seven hours of associated study time per week.

A basic understanding of the history of art and experience in researching and analyzing art objects.

Wally Caruana, Aboriginal art, Thames and Hudson, 2003