The Foundation Course in Art and Design is a premium springboard to university degree programmes in the diverse fields of art and design – and insofar an important first step towards a career in the arts or creative industries. It gives students an opportunity to explore their individual skills, strengths and interests as well as guidance regarding the path they’d like to pursue in the future. Given its personal approach, wealth of tradition, and multidisciplinary networks, the Lucerne School of Art and Design is ideally equipped to help students make this important decision.
The Foundation Course in Art and Design leaves students time enough to open up to new ways of seeing as well as to work with a broad range of materials, to draw and paint, to explore photography and filmmaking, to experiment with colour, form, and images, and to make their creative ideas a reality. Students can try out digital and analogue techniques as well as the methods and processes involved in manual crafts. Working in the School of Art and Design’s new workshops, studios and labs, is an ideal hands-on way to gain practical skills.
In August 2019 the Foundation Course will move to new premises on the Viscosistadt campus – and its structure will be adapted to this new location. From the very start, tailor-made inductions will introduce students to the broad range and potential of the design, film and art fields, by covering our diverse range of modules, as well as the skills and working methods each module requires.
Here, students learn to reflect on and analyse the qualities of their work in intensive discussion with their fellow students and lecturers. In specialised modules, they explore pioneering solutions to social issues, gain a solid understanding of past and present design in different contexts, and apply their newly acquired practical skills accordingly.
They are confronted with controversial ideas and a variety of artistic positions brought to the classroom, workshop, studio or lab by our lecturers and guest speakers, who are all creative personalities. To wrestle with their concepts or adopt a contrary position and go one’s own way demands a strong will, resilience and persistence. To strengthen these vital characteristics and so embolden students to pursue their passion for art and design is our primary task as teaching staff, in addition to teaching the relevant theory and skill sets for specialised practices.
Bachelor students’ retrospective take on their Foundation Course and what it taught them is available (in Swiss-German only) here: (Alumni Report)Ehemalige berichten and (Alumni Report – Part 2)Ehemalige berichten – Teil 2.
