Restricted to first semester first year students in the College of Arts and Humanities.

Drawing from visual art practice, art history and philosophy, this course examines how different traditions have approached the role of art in shaping understanding. Students will explore historical and contemporary artworks across a range of media, to consider how artists have sought to explain, question, document, or reimagine the world around them. A significant portion of the course is devoted to hands-on making, alongside close looking, discussion, and critical reading. Students will work with materials, processes, and forms to interrogate the conditions and contexts of everyday life. Making art is treated not as a technical skill-building exercise, but as a mode of inquiry that complements historical and interpretive approaches. No prior art experience is required.