The Programme prepares students for working as artists in the contemporary world. While galleries and museums remain major places for art to be viewed, opportunities for artists to make work in and for other contexts and places have increased enormously. To this end, the course offers not only the opportunity to exhibit in the traditional sense, but also explores these other contexts. This contextual approach to art is explored through the Public Art Project, which each student carries out in each year of the course. In this respect, Environmental Art is one of the few programmes in the UK in which students are specifically prepared for this kind of art practice.

Skills and understanding are gained through students experiencing a broad range of skills in drawing, casting, wood and metal fabrication, photography, video, computers and sound. Seminars and lectures on the history, theory and professional practices of public art, in its broadest sense, are an integral part of the programme. Students are expected to focus their activities in terms of concept and medium and to develop a self-directed art practice with a considered understanding of the context in which the work resides and is understood.

Core objectives are to develop in students an informed understanding and use of language in materials/media and ideas, and to make art in response to a context. Students will also have formed a confident, critical language in response to contemporary art practice.