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Assessment Resource Centre (ARC)

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  4. City as Utopia: City in Decline - Design for Sculpture
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City as Utopia: City in Decline - Design for Sculpture


Grade Work Samples
End of Stage 5 (end of Year 10)
Grade A Shannon  
New Work Samples
Terry

Description of activity

Students will plan and design a freestanding sculpture in response to their investigation of the city, incorporating the use of found objects and a variety of construction techniques. They select and consider various materials as symbols to communicate aspects of urban decay and decline in a visual form to an audience. Students annotate their design/s and document their choices and decisions in their Visual Arts diary.

Context

Students in Year 10 have explored the city as a metaphor for utopia and decline. They have investigated different artmaking conventions and procedures, in a range of forms including photography and drawing, to develop meanings and communicate a point of view about the city and urban decay in a body of work. They have investigated modernist and postmodernist sculptors and sculptural practices through the structural and cultural frames and the conceptual framework, before planning their own 3D totemic sculpture representing the city in decline.

Areas for Assessment

Outcomes

A student:

5.1 develops range and autonomy in selecting and applying visual arts conventions and procedures to make artworks

5.2 makes artworks informed by their understanding of the function of and relationships between artist - artwork - world - audience

5.3 makes artworks informed by an understanding of how the frames affect meaning

5.4 investigates the world as a source of ideas, concepts and subject matter in the visual arts

5.5 makes informed choices to develop and extend concepts and different meanings in their artworks

5.6 demonstrates developing technical accomplishment and refinement in making artworks.

Criteria for assessing learning

(These criteria would normally be communicated to students with the activity.)

Students will be assessed on their:

  • awareness of the conventions and techniques of three-dimensional sculpture, demonstrated through choices, selections and decisions in planning, evident in their Visual Arts diary through the:
    • planning and designing of a freestanding urban totem in response to an investigation of city decay, representing aspects of the urban environment
    • understanding of modernist and postmodernist sculptural practices revealed through proposed assemblage techniques, shapes, surfaces, symbolism and juxtaposed objects
  • understanding of how the frames and aspects of the conceptual framework can represent ideas and interests about the urban environment through the:
    • use of the structural frame in the selection of appropriate materials, objects, construction and joining techniques in order to create signs and symbols that communicate aspects of urban decay
    • awareness of the relationships between agencies of the conceptual framework in communicating ideas about the world in a visual form to an audience
    • consideration of all viewpoints of a sculpture in the round and the relationship between the proposed sculpture and its audience, eg scale, height, base, reflective surfaces
  • experimentation, reflection, technical accomplishment and refinement in developing a plan for a 3D freestanding assemblage, which is a product of their actions, judgements and artistic intentions through:
    • experimentation, critical reflection, evaluation and considered judgements in relation to planning and developing a design proposal, evident in the diary
    • communication of a point of view about an aspect of urban decay, expressed through the decisions made about the planned sculpture, documented in the diary through diagrams, annotated sketches and/or collage.
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