Bachelor of Fine Arts

Discover what's possible when your imagination comes alive in our custom studios. Innovative and industry-aligned, this specialisation empowers you to thrive as an artist. Learning from accomplished, industry-active media artists, producers, and theorists, you'll work with the latest creative ideas and digital production methods. 

Build your skillset as you focus your studies on at least two of the following studio areas: animation, visual effects, moving image, sound, and 3D visualisation.

Starting with the essential elements of animated movement, you'll incorporate real-world physics into your animated sequences and experiment with 3D as you develop your animation portfolio and showreel.

Learn how to work with video to produce art, installations, experimental films, and cinema. Starting with digital video cameras, sound recording and editing software, you’ll develop shooting and editing skills as you explore different genres and studio production techniques.

Integrate computer-generated elements with live-action footage as you explore the creative possibilities of visual effects. Working hands-on with digital cameras, greenscreens, and the latest compositing software, you'll learn how to create and sequence content to capture audience attention.

Get hands-on in our sound studios and acoustic environments to create media artworks using sound-based techniques and processes. Develop skills and knowledge to create compelling soundscapes for screen-based projects as well as sound art for galleries and virtual and public spaces.

Delve into virtual worlds in our 3D studio and explore how to create virtual environments. Develop the skills and practices required to join a growing digital industry. Through hands-on experience, you'll gain 3D modelling and texturing skills, leading to virtual reality applications and real-time immersive platforms.

With a wide variety of topics available, you can choose courses and pathways to suits your interests. Develop your knowledge working with teachers who are recognised worldwide for their contribution to art and culture. Situated on our creative campus, you'll also take practical art classes and use creative facilities to gain hands-on experience in the studio, making and analysing art alongside the artists and designers of the future. 

Explore career pathways by curating exhibitions, writing about art, working with artists, and learning from industry professionals. You’ll graduate with connections and essential skills that will help you thrive in your chosen career in the arts and creative industries.

In this specialisation, you’ll study a combination of compulsory and optional courses focused on the following themes: 

• Art and embodiment
• Art and institutions
• Art, science, and technology
• Local and global art

Explore how artists have represented the body and how the social, cultural, and political dimensions of embodied experience can be understood through a diverse range of perspectives and practices. 

Delve deep into questions about the roles and responsibilities of museums, galleries, and cultural institutions, gaining insights into histories and theories of exhibition practice – setting you up for your own future curatorial projects.

Like art, science and technology are fundamental forces shaping society. In this theme, you'll explore how artists and theorists engage with scientific data and new technologies to create social change.

Explore art's role in shaping society, culture, and politics in Australian and international contexts. By examining critical questions about how art gives voice to diverse perspectives, you’ll engage with the most important ideas and debates in Australian and international art.

Develop your interests across a diverse range of musical genres under guidance from world-class performers and scholars. The music specialisation allows you to explore and perform classical, experimental, and modern music, music technology, electronic music, and studio recording. No matter what genre draws you in, you'll join a community of supportive and inspiring musicians who value creative, ethical, and cosmopolitan musical practices.

This specialisation includes one-to-one lessons and an array of ensemble classes. Learn professional and technical skills for performance along with theoretical musicology knowledge. Rehearse and perform in custom-built spaces with extensive support to hone your skills. After your first year, your skills will continue to develop through a flexible pathway, or with a focus on creative practice, music pedagogy or sonic arts.

Put your skills into practice and connect with industry professionals through our ensembles such as: 

• UNSW Symphony Orchestra 
• Collegium Musicum Choir 
• a range of jazz ensembles
• New Music Ensemble
• Chinese Music Ensemble
• Balinese Gamelan
• Tango Ensemble
• Bulgarian Voices
• Wind Symphony

You can also choose to build connections and experiences through an industry internship and overseas study. 

Devote more of your studies to performance, composition, and creation. Challenge your musical skills to develop and perform a specialised music style that demonstrates your technical and interpretive abilities. Develop your craft by collaborating with others in ensembles and one-to-one lessons. With support from mentors, lecturers, and teachers, you'll produce original performances, compositions, and recordings to showcase at public events.

Shape your individual style of teaching music to beginners, advanced students, children, and adults. You'll understand how to bring out the best in others by developing an objective approach to your own learning and performance skills. You'll make formal observations of expert teachers at work, get practical experience presenting specialist instrumental and vocal skills, and understand how teaching and learning fit within broader approaches to music education.

Blend ideas with practical skills to explore new sonic technologies and develop your future career in electronic arts. While exploring experimental compositions and recent music production trends, you'll work on projects that build your sound design, sequencing, mixing, editing and post-production skills. You'll combine audio with video and create immersive environments for multi-speaker and surround sound projects. Your learning will take place in our industry-standard recording studios and mixing spaces, and you will learn how to use specialist sonic arts software. 

Develop and combine practical skills across multiple studio areas as you acquire the creative, conceptual, and professional skills for your independent artistic practice. In your first year, experimentation is key as you expand your skills and knowledge in contemporary art practice. In the second year, you will focus your studies through at least two studio disciplines, choosing from drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and moving image. Hone your skills, refine your practice, create artworks for exhibitions, and build artistic networks as you explore industry pathways in your third year.

Throughout your studies, you’ll also learn about the histories and theories that inform contemporary art practice, gaining important analytical, communication and research skills, while critically examining key ideas and debates shaping today’s art and cultural fields.

Develop fundamental and exploratory skills in drawing to kick start your contemporary art practice. You’ll work from the human figure, experiment with a range of traditional and contemporary materials and extend your individual practice through rigorous creative approaches.

Challenge conventions as you explore diverse painting techniques and processes to test ideas and approaches in a critically informed studio environment. Engage with painting as a formal, material, and conceptual practice as you develop your individual artistic voice.

From analogue darkroom processes to studio lighting and the latest digital image techniques, you’ll develop diverse and transferable skills in the photography studio. Think critically and creatively as you work practically in the studio to explore the material and conceptual possibilities of contemporary photography.

Acquire technical skills in traditional and contemporary print methods across etching, relief printing, screen-printing, and digital processes in the printmaking studio. In this highly collaborative studio, you’ll engage with the latest ideas and debates to generate your own artworks in a contemporary printmaking environment.

Work sculpturally and spatially to create artworks at scale ready for exhibition contexts. In the sculpture studio, you’ll explore diverse materials and processes from assemblage to mould-making and casting as you consider the tactile, social, and embodied potentials of your practice.

Learn how to work with video to produce art, installations, experimental films, and cinema. Starting with digital video cameras, sound recording and editing software, you’ll develop shooting and editing skills as you explore different genres and studio production techniques.

This program offers a specialisation of 16 courses in one study area. You’ll choose elective and two general education courses with the remaining eight courses. Electives can be from any study area you like, and general education courses must taken from outside your study area.

This program structure has specialisations organised into a major (16 courses) and a minor (6 courses). You can choose a Fine Arts minor to such as Animation and Moving Image, Art Theory, Music Studies, Theatre and Performance Studies, or Visual Arts to complement your studies, or choose a minor from the diverse offerings across the faculty. Depending on your minor, you'll also have two electives or general education courses to complete your degree.

With this degree, you'll choose and develop specialist skills and knowledge in one comprehensive area of study. You'll have the freedom and flexibility to complement your specialisation with a minor or elective courses from other approved study areas.

Whether you want to study a greater or fewer number of courses in any term, the choice is yours. Our flexible academic calendar means you can graduate faster or take your time to study abroad, complete an additional internship, or fit your study around other commitments.

Broaden your horizons and study overseas for a term. Choose an international exchange at one of UNSW’s 200 partners in more than 30 countries. UNSW encourages a global mindset, which means overseas study can be credited toward your degree with us, and you may also be eligible for financial support to help cover the costs of studying internationally.

Whether you have a learning difficulty or could benefit from extra guidance, you’ll find free UNSW academic skills support such as toolkits, tutors, and workshops. UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture students and academics are supportive, diverse, and inclusive – it’s easy to ask for advice.