ARTS0001 Introduction to the Humanities

Assistant Professor
Department of Fine Arts & BA Programme in Cultural Management
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• BA Programme in Cultural Management
• BA Programme in Cultural Management – Scope of Studies
• BA Programme in Cultural Management, CUHK – Internship

Students will be engaged with platform-specific practices, exploring how various social platforms and open content management systems and online games, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WordPress, Minecraft, etc, could be adopted to present web/social media-based collection and dissemination. Through various hands-on activities involving creative practices, brainstorming, writing, and practice-based curatorial exercises, this course will enable students to develop visual analysis, communication, and leadership competencies, and to critically apply knowledge in order to achieve creative outcomes.

Students will be engaged in a brainstorming session, which includes skills in identifying, conceptualizing and translating complex ideas into concepts that are informed by a thorough understanding of the contexts we live in. In addition, a brief lecture on new media will be presented to inspire students with theoretical knowledge on social media that can be applied to the fields of creative industries.

Lesson 2: Visualization – How to use visual journal to document culture?

Students will generate their own image collection by creating a visual journal. By doing this, they will learn about how visual journal could be adopted as a vital tool for supporting, stimulating and documenting ideas. In addition, students will experiment on different visual media, such as photos, video, and digital images found online for personal cultural expression.

Lesson 3: Field trip – How to observe an exhibition?

Students will take a field trip to an exhibition where they will learn about how cultural artefacts are arranged and presented in a particular spatial setting. In addition, students will have the opportunity to meet cultural practitioners and curators and experience the real-life settings of the creative industry.

Lesson 4: Content creation – How to create interesting contents?

In addition to practical skills, this course will also encourages students to adopt strategies, transforming their visions into social contents that would potentially bring impact to the cultural sector and communities.

Lesson 5: Writing – How to turn ideas into writing?

Students will be encouraged to develop strategies for communicating with audiences through various writing exercises. They will learn how to capture their curatorial rationale by putting their thoughts into in the form of social media texts.

Lesson 6: Making – How to showcase creative works online?

Students will be invited to present the creative works they produced in the first part of the course alongside the production of various forms of writings. They will gain hands-on experience in putting up cultural contents and exploring the relationships between visual, text, and user experience in the format of an online exhibition.

• Perform acute observation and show sensitivity based on a specified aesthetic/cultural topic of the time we live in
• Effectively communicate creative ideas with appropriate visuals
• Critically assess their own creative process
• Explain the concept of curation
• Develop skills in conceptualizing and writing artworks
• Develop skills in an online exhibition display

1. O’Neill, P. (2016). Culture of curating and the curating of culture(s). MIT Press.
2. George, A. (2017). The curator’s handbook. London: Thames & Hudson.
3. Greenberg, R. (2010). Thinking about exhibitions. London: Routledge.

Creative Works for Showcase (30%)

Writing Exercises: Exhibition Texts and Curatorial Rationale (20%)

Showcase: Artwork Display and Exhibition Design (30%)