aqa essay art

AQA GCSE Art and Design Past Papers

Complete aqa gcse art and design past papers.

We’ve worked with teachers to develop a qualification that encourages students to develop their skills across a range of disciplines. It provides a foundation for students to pursue further education or to continue their own creative journeys.

We’re developing a range of resources to help you teach with confidence. We’ll also be hosting free events to inspire your course delivery and supporting your marking with exhibitions of live work.

Our specification is flexible and accessible: you can tailor your course to your students’ interests and your school’s strengths.

Why choose AQA for GCSE Art and Design

Vibrant and dynamic, this specification will give you the freedom to teach GCSE Art and Design in ways that inspire and bring out the best in all your students, whilst equipping them with the skills to continue the subject with confidence at AS, A-level and beyond.

The qualification features a wide range of titles including Art, craft and design, Fine art, Graphic communication, Textile design, Three-dimensional design and Photography. The flexibility of its design means you can tailor your course to your students’ interests and your school’s strengths.

You can find out about all our Art and Design qualifications at  aqa.org.uk/art-and-design    

A specification designed for you and your students

We have worked closely with teachers to design our specification to inspire, challenge and motivate every student, no matter what their level of ability, while supporting you in developing creative and engaging lessons.

The qualification provides scope for innovation and curriculum development and offers you opportunities to tailor courses of study to the individual needs of your students.

With two components, comprising a ‘Portfolio’ selected from the course of study and an ‘Externally set assignment’, the specification provides your students with a range of creative, exciting and stimulating opportunities to develop and explore their personal interests in art and design.

It allows for progression from Key Stage 3 whilst providing a strong foundation for further study at AS and A-level as well as vocational pathways. To support this progression, the assessment objectives, structure and titles are very similar to those detailed in the AS and A-level Art and Design specification.

Choice and flexibility

There is a full range of options open to you and your students through the course titles, which allow for the study of art and design in both breadth and depth. Portfolio projects, assignments or briefs can be open-ended or more narrowly focused. There is no restriction on the choice of media, scale or format that students use to reflect and evidence their submissions.

We have retained a similar approach to the choice and flexibility seen in the current externally set assignment papers, with the same number of starting points offered under each title. Some will be open in nature, others will have a greater degree of prescription.

Skills-based approach

The specification has been designed to allow students to develop knowledge and understanding during the course through a variety of learning experiences and approaches, including engagement with sources. This will allow them to develop the skills to explore, create and communicate their own ideas.

Students will demonstrate these skills through the development, refinement, recording, realisation and presentation of their ideas through a portfolio and by responding to an externally set assignment.

We’re behind you every step of the way

Our moderation and standardisation processes have been developed to ensure assessment is fair and consistent: with AQA you can rest assured that your students will receive the grade that fairly represents their attainment and reflects the skills that they have demonstrated.

We are committed to the partnership we have developed with teachers and will continue to offer a comprehensive range of support and provision for you and your students.

Our difference

AQA is a registered charity. We have no shareholders to pay. We exist solely for the good of education in the United Kingdom (UK). Any surplus income is ploughed back into educational research and our service to you.

Support and resources to help you teach

We know that support and resources are vital for your teaching and that you have limited time to find or develop good quality materials. So we’ve worked with experienced teachers to provide you with a range of resources that will help you confidently plan, teach and prepare for assessments.

Teaching resources

Visit  aqa.org.uk/8201  to see all our teaching resources. They include:

• Schemes of work:  a variety of ideas across all titles to help you plan your course with confidence.
• Teacher’s guide:  including information on interpreting the assessment objectives; expanded definition of art, craft and design; guide to constructing a portfolio; ways of presenting student evidence; purposeful engagement with sources; guide to managing non-exam assessment; FAQs and further resource materials.
• Good practice guides:  that will help you to inspire and challenge students to think creatively.
• Exemplification materials:  that showcase sets of marked students’ work supported by examiner commentaries and guidance.
• Guide to written annotation:  including a chapter for each title.
• Guide to drawing for different purposes and needs:  including a chapter for each title.

Support service

• Teacher standardisation:  to help you mark your students’ work we offer over 100 free teacher standardisation half-day meetings nationally, using exhibitions of live work, covering all titles and a range of marks at each level.
• Twilight sessions:  are after school meetings that showcase the exhibition of live students’ work, with additional special interest sets. These free of charge meetings are an opportunity to inform and inspire good teaching practice.
• Art and design advisory service:  each school or college is allocated a subject adviser. You can contact them for one-to-one advice on any aspect of the subject, assessment and/or support with planning and delivery of course content.
• Subject community:  provides access to free resources and services offered by museums, galleries as well as from universities and art colleges.
• Support meetings:  to help you with course delivery; offering practical teaching strategies and approaches that really work.
• Training courses  to help you deliver AQA art and design qualifications.
• Subject expertise courses  for all teachers, from newly qualified teachers who are just getting started to experienced teachers looking for fresh inspiration.

To find out more about our support service visit  http://www.aqa.org.uk/art-and-design    

Preparing for assessment

Visit  aqa.org.uk/8201  for everything you need to prepare for our assessment, including:

• past papers and examiners’ reports
• specimen papers for new courses
• exemplar student answers with examiner commentaries.

Analyse your students’ results with Enhanced Results Analysis (ERA)

Find out how your results compare to previous years and where your students need to improve. ERA, our free online results analysis tool, will help you see where to focus your teaching. Register at  aqa.org.uk/era    

For information about results, including maintaining standards over time, grade boundaries and our post-results services, visit  aqa.org.uk/results    

Keep your skills up-to-date with professional development

Wherever you are in your career, there’s always something new to learn. As well as subject-specific training, we offer a range of courses to help boost your skills.

• Improve your teaching skills in areas including differentiation, teaching literacy and meeting Ofsted requirements.
• Prepare for a new role with our leadership and management courses.

You can attend a course at venues around the country, in your school or online – whatever suits your needs and availability. Find out more at  coursesandevents.aqa.org.uk

AQA-8200-WRE-JUN18

AQA-8201-SQP

AQA-8202-SQP

AQA-8203-SQP

AQA-8204-SQP

AQA-8205-SQP

AQA-8206-SQP

AQA-8202X-QP-JUN18

AQA-8204X-QP-JUN18

AQA-8206X-QP-JUN18

AQA-8201X-QP-JUN18

AQA-8203X-QP-JUN18

AQA-8205X-QP-JUN18

Writing the A2 Art Personal Study: examples, help and guidance

Last Updated on April 2, 2023

This article has been written for CIE A Level Art students who are working on their A2 Art Personal Study . It focuses purely on how to write the text of the Study; a previous article outlines how to come up with a good topic ; a future article will address the illustrations and presentation methods.

The Personal Study is an area of uncertainty for many A Level Art students. It differs from projects that are usually completed within high school Art programmes, as it involves a substantial written component (maximum 3,500 words) – something which can intimidate students, especially if they are unfamiliar with how to critically analyse an artwork, make informed judgements and write personal evaluations. With few examples of quality Personal Studies available, it can be difficult to know what is expected and how to begin. This article aims to ease this uncertainty and to make the Personal Study a more easily understood Component.

READ NEXT: How to make an artist website (and why you need one)

1. Research thoroughly

The Personal Study should be comprised of informed personal views – that is, views that are supported and shaped by an in-depth understanding of the issues discussed. Before starting the project, students should conduct thorough background research, selecting and recording information from second-hand sources (such as books, websites and other publications) and first-hand sources (interviews with artists, studio visits / gallery visits etc). Interviews with artists should be planned thoroughly, after preliminary second-hand research has been completed (as findings from research will suggest important issues to discuss with the artist).

Students are often uncertain about how to phrase questions, so sample questions have been included below (the exact questions asked will depend on the topic and focus of the study):

• Please talk me through the process you follow when designing your paintings. Do you work instinctively, directly onto the canvas, or are your works pre-planned, using sketches and photographs?
• What influences your choice of colour? I am interested particularly in the colours used in [insert name of painting/s]. Could you explain your thought process behind the use of colour in this work, particularly the [give example]?
• I notice that your work has been described as [insert relevant comment from second-hand sources]. Do you agree with this statement? How do you respond to this?
• I notice that [insert an aesthetic feature of their artwork i.e. ‘angular line’ or ‘organic form’] is a dominant feature of your work. Is this strongly connected to the ideas that you are exploring? Have you used these elements deliberately?
• Can you show me work in progress or semi-complete artwork? I would love to understand the process you go through and how you apply media at different stages.
• Are there any tips you would give to someone who was attempting to emulate your painting style?
• Which artists have influenced your work? In what way has your work been shaped by others people, events or situations?

2. Evaluate and interpret research findings

Conducting research is critical for creating an excellent Personal Study, however, it should be noted that submitting research on its own will not gain a student any marks. Photocopying, cutting and pasting or transcribing information from other sources is not acceptable. Examiners do not want to read long lists of facts or chronological sequences of events. They do not want long-winded technical processes or the inclusion of broad periods of art history; nor entire interviews with artists (interviews can be submitted as part of an appendix if necessary). Students should not include an extensive artist biography (only brief and relevant details are needed) nor include vast passages of text that have been regurgitated from other sources.

Instead, students must select the information which is relevant and analyse this in detail, evaluating and interpreting findings in relation to the focus of their study . Research should be used to help form intelligent, knowledgeable, personal responses : to explain, justify or support the viewpoints, judgements and conclusions that are presented.

Evidence of research might be demonstrated, for example, through the use of carefully chosen quotes (to support or contrast the student’s own ideas) or through the inclusion of correct terminology and background knowledge to communicate an in-depth understanding of relevant issues. Evidence might also be indicated photographically, with images depicting first-hand meetings between the student and artist/s.

This Personal Study by CIE A2 Level Art and Design student Alice Ham, from  ACG Parnell College , shows a cleverly selected quote alongside images by New Zealand charcoal artist Liam Gerrard . Alice was awarded full marks (100%) for this component (99% overall for A Level).

3. Structure the Personal Study in a logical and clear manner

Before writing the Personal Study, students should plan the content, order and structure of their study thoroughly (often in conjunction with planning the layout of their project – this will discussed in more detail in a subsequent post). This should include headings and subheadings of material discussed and rough diagrams indicating how this will be supported by images. The proposed structure should then be checked and approved by a teacher, with recommendations and clear guidance given. While the structure of each Personal Study will differ, depending on the topic chosen, every study should follow the basic format outlined below:

• Introduction . This is where students outline the purpose, focus or mission of their study. This may include question/s they are going to answer; themes they are going to explore; issues they hope to address etc. It should set the scene for the project and may include reasons for selecting a topic and an indication of how / why the topic is of personal relevance or interest to the student. It is important that the intentions of the project are clearly set out in this section, so that the remainder of the project can be structured accordingly.
• Body . This is the main part of the Personal Study and will need careful thought. It is usually organised into separate sections (which may be formal chapters, or simply different areas of a visual study), usually with individual headings and sometimes sub-headings. (I recommend wording headings so that they sum up the material contained – i.e. ‘ Analysis of Composition: [artwork title] ’ rather than ‘ Chapter 3 ’. This means that the examiner is able to see immediately that the student has covered a range of appropriate areas). The sections should be ordered logically and address the focus of the project; they should NOT ramble haphazardly from one issue to the next. High school Art students have a tendency to write without any preconceived order or structure, discussing issues spontaneously as they think of them. While this can be a suitable approach for more creative writing tasks – and can pulled off by certain students – this strategy runs the risk of creating a muddled and incoherent Personal Study.
• Conclusion . This is where students summarise key points from the project, arrive at final conclusions and make considered personal judgements about what has been learnt.

This is one of the concluding paragraphs in a Personal Study by Nikau Hindin (who achieved 98% for CIE A Level Art while studying at ACG Parnell College), entitled ‘ Identity, Consumerism & Popular Culture: How composition conveys a message ‘. The project was focused upon the analysis of artwork by New Zealand artist Kelcy Taratoa , with comparisons made with the work of American artist Bill Barminski :

Taratoa’s use of composition helps convey his message concerning identity construction. The arrangement of elements is symbolic of an unconscious hierarchy within his paintings that forces the viewer to question and analyse them. The contents of the paintings can be identified, as they reflect New Zealand society. Taratoa’s use of colour is vibrant and modern, echoing the technological era we live in. Barminski has a more dynamic and humorous approach to conveying his message. He mocks consumerism with his witty and blunt slogans and replications of consumer products. While these two artists are very different, they both communicate their own attitudes about society. Making a political statement through your paintings forces an audience to engage. Ultimately we want our art to be remembered and admired and I think if the message of a painting is clear then the viewer is more likely to go away and think about it. Paintings are a powerful tool to communicate a meaning that is deeper than the 2mm of paint on a canvas. Paintings are an artist’s voice.

• Bibliography / References / Acknowledgements . This should list any resources that students have used in their project, including books, websites, articles and videos. It might also include sources of first-hand information, such as museums, galleries or websites, as well as acknowledgements, thanking the artist for their time.

4. Write clearly and coherently

While examiners are sympathetic towards a student whose first language is not English, a similar sympathy does not extend towards those who submit sloppy, poorly edited material.

Just as it is expected that a Coursework project should contain beautiful well-composed artwork, a Personal Study is expected to contain well-structured, well-edited material. Even if a student has chosen to produce a largely visual project, submitting a sequence of annotated images, the text should communicate with intention and the writing quality should match that achieved by an A Level English student. Poor grammar, spelling errors and ‘txt’ speak are inexcusable.

As with any important written project, drafts should be rewritten and refined several times: chapters re-arranged; paragraphs and annotation reorganised; repetitive material, waffle and unnecessary regurgitation eliminated. Teachers, parents and friends can all be recruited to read through drafts, highlighting spelling errors and identifying areas where the writing is muddled. While the work must of course remain entirely that of the student, feedback from a fresh set of eyes is invaluable.

5. Use subject-specific vocabulary

A Personal Study should include an appropriate range of Art related terms and vocabulary. While the exact words used will be dependent upon the nature and focus of the study, there are a number of general Art-specific terms which students should be familiar with (these will be listed, with their definitions, in an upcoming article). Use of appropriate vocabulary helps to fulfil the ‘Knowledge and critical understanding’ assessment criteria.

6. Make it PERSONAL

As the title indicates, a Personal Study must communicate distinctly personal opinions, insights, judgements and responses, demonstrating a clear engagement with the artwork studied.

This excerpt from an 100% OCR A Level Art Personal Study by Yantra Scott entitled ‘ An investigation into gender roles in contemporary art ‘ illustrates this:

I first encountered Sarah Lucas whist briskly strolling through the crowded rooms of the Tate. Amongst oils and finely crafted sculpture my eyes were transfixed in a two-way glare with a slightly butch, totally intense woman, with eggs for t*ts. Ever since then I’ve been hooked.

It is evident that Yantra not only visited and viewed artwork in the flesh, but had a strong personal reaction to it. It could never be assumed that this segment had been reworded from a textbook: it is absolutely the words of a passionate high school Art student. Although Yantra uses coarse language within her study (something which should be emulated with caution) this project is an exceptional example of an intelligent and personal response to a topic. (More of Yantra’s work, as well as the entire text of her study, can be read in full on the great Julia Stubbs’ website ).

Similarly, this quote from an 88% OCR A2 Art Personal Study (one of the examples given in the OCR A2 Art Exemplar Work – Personal Study document ) shows a personal response integrated within the analysis of Damien Hurst ’s work, illustrated below.

The glass is thick, so thick that it is intimidating. It is as if it is holding something terrible back. It makes you question the formaldehyde and query, what if the tank did break? The formaldehyde is not clear as I expected but is quite strongly coloured by a blue and green pigment. This colour is very clinical and has the connotations of a hospital…

The musings about the tank breaking and the formaldehyde differing from expectations are clearly the individual thoughts of a high school art student.

7. Understand ‘cultural context’

Within the Personal Study, students must demonstrate an understanding of cultural context –  an understanding that an artist does not create work in isolation, but rather creates work that is shaped and influenced by the circumstance/s they finds themselves in. This might mean that discussion of the influence of natural, social, political or cultural environments is appropriate, or that – as is more common – the influence of other artists is discussed, with comparisons made between artwork that has been created in similar or differing contexts.

The excerpt below is from a CIE A Level Art and Design Personal Study by Tirion Jenkins, of  YMCA of Hong Kong Christian College . Titled ‘Alternative Fashion Photography’, her Personal Study was awarded Best in Hong Kong (2012) and includes analysis of ‘One night in Mong Kok’ by photographer Akif Hakan Celebi . Tirion demonstrates a clear understanding of the interrelationship between a photographer’s work and the setting in which it was created.

The setting itself creates an intoxicating atmosphere with the rows of fluorescent light bulbs and layers of luminous signs that form an endless maze of gaudy colours. However, the setting does not overwhelm the two models who draw my eyes despite the signs above them. They create the focal point of the image through the use of the rule of thirds as they are placed off-centre and through their quirky appearance which magnetises the eye towards them. They seem to belong to a different world to the passersby behind them with their flare of red hair and audacious choice of feathered flittered clothes. Akif has further crafted the image through the use of makeup as their chalk white faces further segregates and emphasises their surreal doll-like appearances. …Akif’s pictures are reminiscent of Japanese cinema which he says he is so influenced by. “I like…its writhed and crazy stories; I feel very close to that way of looking at the world.” This photograph is particularly mystical due to the vibrant and decorative bokeh of Hong Kong’s street lights in the background.

8. Critically analyse artworks

The core of the A2 Art Personal Study is the in-depth analysis of selected artist works. Some of these artworks must be viewed in person, however it is common (and completely acceptable) for students to analyse work from a combination of primary and secondary sources.  In the best studies, artworks are chosen specifically to facilitate the discussion of issues which are relevant to the study.

The advice in this section is particularly important and should be read closely by students who are hoping to achieve a high grade for their Personal Study.

When analysing artwork, it is helpful to analyse the work in terms of composition, format, structure and visual elements (such as shape, line, texture, colour, space, tone) . Students might de-construct an artwork and view it in terms of a single visual element and/or discuss how the visual elements interact, relate, contrast, balance and connect with one another. Descriptions of important terms have been included below to aid this process:

• Composition is the placement or organisation of visual elements within an artwork – the way these have been composed, combined or ‘put together’. Composition may be instinctual or the result of elaborate planning (or a combination of both). A ‘compositional device’ is an aspect of a composition which has a certain effect (such as the use of frames within frames, which might help create a sense of distance or space within an artwork).
• Format is the overall shape, size and orientation (portrait or landscape) of an artwork, i.e. whether a work is painted on a long, horizontal oblong canvas, or upon a vertically orientated A4 portrait board. Format can be influenced by practical considerations (i.e. the nature and shape of the object or scene depicted) as well as being an active decision by the artist to help communicate a particular meaning or idea.
• The structure of an artwork is the organisation of basic forms within a composition (this will be illustrated in more detail in the subsequent post focusing on imagery).
• Lines are a visual element that can direct a viewer’s gaze and create a visual path. These can direct attention to a focal point and create depth through perspective or horizon lines. Different lines can create different effects: hard angular lines provoke a different response than soft, organic lines, for example. Repetition of lines can create a sense of movement or rhythm.
• Shape is a visual element that is created by the junction of lines or changes in tone: the perceived boundaries of form. Larger shapes can become dominant focal points within an artwork; similar shapes can be repeated to create balance and create unity / visual harmony. Shapes can be symbolic, i.e. they can represent more complex forms and carry meaning. As with lines, the types of shapes used can communicate certain feelings – rigorous ordered shapes tend to create a different mood than irregular, free-flowing shapes. Shapes might also be used to create borders / frames and boundaries that connect, overlap or intersect, perhaps helping to draw viewers from the foreground / middle-ground to background.
• Space – the absence of form – is an often overlooked visual element. Described as being either positive (the space contained within the boundary of an object) or negative (the background space in and around an object), space can determine how busy and cluttered a painting is. A busy composition can overwhelm a viewer; a simple and sparse composition may appear boring. Careful integration of space is fundamental to any artwork.
• Form is a visual element that is usually discussed more easily in relation to three dimensional objects (as three-dimensional forms are usually described within two dimensional works in terms of shape, tone and line).
• Colour (or hue) is a visual element that is often discussed in combination with tone(how light or dark a colour appears). Colour can affect the mood of an artwork due to colour associations – i.e. blue might indicate sadness. Tone can help to communicate a sense of distance (items that are further away generally appear lighter – due to ‘atmospheric perspective’). Both tone and colour can be used to create contrast within an artwork, attracting the viewer’s attention and helping to create focal areas. Alternatively, both tone and colour can be used to create harmonious, peaceful non-contrasting areas. Use of light and shadow or warm and cool might also be an important area to discuss.
• Texture can be real (the result of brush strokes, irregularities in materials, and the application of a range of materials) or implied…i.e. a surface that is made to looktextured. As with the other visual elements, texture should be integrated so that it balances and becomes an aesthetically pleasing addition to an artwork. Surface qualities – along with other detailed areas and intricate patterns – are only able to be appreciated fully when viewed in person.

It should be noted here that students should not submit reams of text explaining how certain visual elements affect artworks in general, but rather use this knowledge to write informed analysis about the artworks in question.

Here is another example by Nikau Hindin, discussing the use of line in paintings by Kelcy Taratoa. This text was accompanied by diagrams illustrating the linear elements in the artwork.

…Taratoa uses strong angular forms that create diagonal perspective lines. These lines are called ‘leading lines’ and direct us to the focal point of this painting, which is a portrait of Taratoa. They also lead our eyes past him and make us look at the background. This helps to convey Taratoa’s message that one’s identity is linked to social circumstance, upbringing (background) and popular culture.  Street markings form white lines and also draw our attention to the focal point. Street markings represent paths and therefore they may be paths to finding and constructing ones identity. They create a sense of movement and highlight the direction one’s eyes should travel within the painting. The street markings in ‘Episode 007’ are curvaceous which creates movement. The curvy lines mirror the organic forms of the superhero’s muscular body, creating a visual link. In ‘Episode 0010’ the repetition of line of the zebra crossing creates a sense of rhythm and leads us to the portrait of Taratoa in the left corner. Horizontal lines are repeated in the background of the painting to unite separate parts of the painting.

As well as the aesthetic qualities discussed above, most students also include sections where they analyse artwork in terms of materials, processes, stylistic influences, techniques (use of media) . For some, this is the primary focus of the Personal Study. This might include analysis of the way an artist has applied paint to a canvas (mark-making, brush strokes), the sequence of building up layers of paint over a prepared ground, or the sequence of events involved in creating a graphic design: from conceptual sketches, development of ideas, construction in Photoshop, through to proofing, paper selection and final printing. It might involve discussion about the way a composition is planned and designed and then the various processes that are undertaken in its completion. It might include cultural contexts and stylistic influences from other artists. In any sections of the Personal Study which are dedicated to process and technique, it is important to note (as mentioned above) that the examiners do not want the regurgitation of long, technical processes, but rather would like to see personal observations about how processes effect and influence the artwork that has been created.

In all analysis of artwork, whether this involves discussion of composition, aesthetic qualities, cultural contexts, use of media, or approach to a theme, it is important that students move beyond simple observations and add perceptive, personal insight. For example, if a student notices that colour has been used to create strong contrast in certain areas of an artwork, they might follow this with a detailed and thoughtful assumption about why this is the case: for example, perhaps the contrast was created deliberately to draw attention to a focal point in the artwork, helping the artist to help convey thematic ideas. These personal insights could be backed up by earlier research, confirmed or suggested by the artist, or might be educated assumptions made by the student, based upon their own responses and personal interaction with the artwork.

Some final recommendations are included below:

• ‘Analysis of artwork’ does not mean ‘description of artwork’ . Analysis means taking an artwork apart (thinking about it in terms of individual elements, such as line, or colour or technique), analysing these individually and/or in terms of how they relate to one another, and making personal observations and judgements, connecting this to the theme or focus of the assignment.
• Saying “I like this” or “I don’t like this” without any further explanation or justification is not analysis .
• Writing should be carefully integrated with the images , so that it is clear which text relates to which images (this will be discussed more in the subsequent post).

Alice Ham, a Year 13 student at  ACG Parnell College  (awarded 100% for her Personal Study) has produced some excellent analysis of artwork by  Liam Gerrard :

In most works (the exception usually applies to those done in commission) the focus of the piece is centred, surrounded by empty space and never grounded through shadow or the like. This is another way in which Gerrard plays with commonly held opinions. Typically, a most aesthetically pleasing composition will follow the rule of thirds – a well known ‘rule’ that correlates to the focus of artworks being offset within the composition, and the entire image being visually divided into 3 sections. Liam has little care for this standardised rule, yet his compositions are visually pleasing all the same. I believe this could be because of the negative space, there is no overcrowding and it allows the viewer to focus on the subject. I also think this space is played upon in the display of the artwork. Galleries in general will have white or very light coloured walls so as not to distract from what is on display. By placing these white canvases on the white walls, hung without obvious framing, the artwork is allowed to ‘flow’ into the viewer’s world, there is no line of separation. This forces the viewer to study Gerrard’s pieces, and perhaps consider the personal message they address for the viewer in everyday life.

Some of the text above has been reproduced here to aid ease of reading:

The expression on the pig’s face is perhaps what would draw the viewer into this picture the most. It directly contradicts the gruesome depiction of decapitation and appears almost to be laughing. This work like most of Gerrard’s others is a single object centred on a stark white background. The amount of empty space in this picture is very eye catching and directs the viewer’s vision inwards, there is no chance of distraction by details in a menial part of the work. Once again Gerrard uses charcoal in his personal style, leaving the artwork in black and white. This lack of colour is cold, it presents the reality of the grisly scene without the embellishment of colours. This does not allow the audience to be caught up in what is ‘pretty’ but forces them to take in every details in it’s highly realistic, and perhaps disturbing, state. The shock factor of this piece is emphasised ten- fold by the sheer size. It cannot be realised until you view this piece in reality, but being dwarfed looking up into a pig’s head captured mid laugh brings upon you a bizarre sense of fascination.

9. Explain the relationship to Coursework (if appropriate)

As explained in the previous post about topic selection, it is no longer necessary that the Personal Study relate to a student’s Coursework project. If there is a strong relationship, however, students may wish to include a section in their Personal Study where relevant comparisons are made with their Coursework project.

10. Don’t exceed the word count

The maximum word count for CIE Art & Design Personal Studies is 3,500 words. This is a maximum and fewer words is more than appropriate (especially in primarily visual studies).

If a student is slightly over the word count, this is unlikely to be an issue (it is rare that examiners would know your exact word count, as no-one is likely to count every word in a project from start to finish); however, if a student is significantly over the word limit, this is obvious and a problem, running the risk that the examiners will run out of time (or enthusiasm) to read your project in its entirety. Almost all cases of word count breaches come from students who have attempted to bulk up their study with unnecessary information from second-hand sources. If you are encroaching the word limit, you should immediately ensure that you have not included supplementary research material or unnecessary information summarised from textbooks. If you are still battling with the word count and inclusion of material from second-hand sources is not an issue, you should re-edit your project, eliminating waffle, and ensuring you communicate succinctly.

Final Notes

I encourage teachers to locate and print the excerpts from Personal Studies that are included in the 9704 Standards booklet on the CIE Teachers’ password protected site , which can be downloaded as a PDF document from the A Level Art & Design page. This document is invaluable.

Finally, we are actively looking for more examples of high achieving Personal Studies to share on the Student Art Guide. If you or someone you know someone who excelled in this Component, please read our submission guidelines for more information.

If you found this information helpful, you may wish to read the previous article in this series: How to select a great A2 Art Personal Study Topic  or our overview of the CIE A Level Art: Personal Study .

Amiria has been an Art & Design teacher and a Curriculum Co-ordinator for seven years, responsible for the course design and assessment of student work in two high-achieving Auckland schools. She has a Bachelor of Architectural Studies, Bachelor of Architecture (First Class Honours) and a Graduate Diploma of Teaching. Amiria is a CIE Accredited Art & Design Coursework Assessor.

JOIN OVER 21,000 PEOPLE WHO RECEIVE OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

You will be notified first when free resources are available: Art project ideas, teaching handouts, printable lesson plans, tips and advice from experienced teachers. What are you waiting for?

Email Address*

We send emails monthly. And don’t worry, we hate spam too! Unsubscribe at any time.

Reimagining Design with Nature: ecological urbanism in Moscow

• Reflective Essay
• Published: 10 September 2019
• Volume 1 , pages 233–247, ( 2019 )

Cite this article

• Brian Mark Evans   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1420-1682 1  

976 Accesses

2 Citations

Explore all metrics

The twenty-first century is the era when populations of cities will exceed rural communities for the first time in human history. The population growth of cities in many countries, including those in transition from planned to market economies, is putting considerable strain on ecological and natural resources. This paper examines four central issues: (a) the challenges and opportunities presented through working in jurisdictions where there are no official or established methods in place to guide regional, ecological and landscape planning and design; (b) the experience of the author’s practice—Gillespies LLP—in addressing these challenges using techniques and methods inspired by McHarg in Design with Nature in the Russian Federation in the first decade of the twenty-first century; (c) the augmentation of methods derived from Design with Nature in reference to innovations in technology since its publication and the contribution that the art of landscape painters can make to landscape analysis and interpretation; and (d) the application of this experience to the international competition and colloquium for the expansion of Moscow. The text concludes with a comment on how the application of this learning and methodological development to landscape and ecological planning and design was judged to be a central tenant of the winning design. Finally, a concluding section reflects on lessons learned and conclusions drawn.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

The politics of designing with nature: reflections from New Orleans and Dhaka

Zachary Lamb

Acknowledgements

The landscape team from Gillespies Glasgow Studio (Steve Nelson, Graeme Pert, Joanne Walker, Rory Wilson and Chris Swan) led by the author and all our collaborators in the Capital Cities Planning Group.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Mackintosh School of Architecture, The Glasgow School of Art, 167 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, G3 6BY, UK

Brian Mark Evans

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brian Mark Evans .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Evans, B.M. Reimagining Design with Nature: ecological urbanism in Moscow. Socio Ecol Pract Res 1 , 233–247 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-019-00031-5

Download citation

Received : 17 March 2019

Accepted : 13 August 2019

Published : 10 September 2019

Issue Date : October 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-019-00031-5

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Design With Nature
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Winners of $450,000 Moscow Art Prize announced

The lucrative award is divided between 16 recipients and funded by the moscow city government.

Igor Makarevich and Elena Yelagina, the husband and wife duo, won the prize in the visual art category Image: courtesy of Moscow Art Prize

The second Moscow Art Prize, which carries a total purse of 33m rubles (almost $450,000), was awarded this week at Zaryadye Park adjacent to Red Square.

The annual prize is awarded by the Foundation for the Development of Contemporary Art, which is run by the Kremlin-connected cultural activist Ivan Demidov, and is funded by the Moscow city government.

The award is divided between three winners each in five categories (literature, film, music, theatre, visual art and architecture) and a grand prize winner. According to the prize’s website, it celebrates works created “in Moscow, about Moscow, for Moscow in any genre and movement of contemporary art.”

The veteran Moscow Conceptualists, husband and wife duo Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina whose works are inspired by Vladimir Tatlin and Kazimir Malevich, took first place in the art category for their retrospective Countdown , which ran at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Vasili Tsereteli, the museum’s director, is on the foundation’s board as well as the prize’s expert council, which includes leading figures of Moscow’s contemporary art scene.

The young artists Alexander Kutovoy and Timofey Parschikov, both born in 1983, were awarded second and third prize; Kutovoy for an exhibition called Bulky Biceps Trying to Fly , and Parschikov for a series of works called Sad.Ok.Super , a Covid quarantine visual diary that was shown at Moscow’s Multimedia Art Museum.

The architect Alexey Ginzburg was the recipient of the grand prize for saving and revitalising the landmark early Soviet Constructivist Narkomfin building designed by his grandfather, Moisei Ginzburg. The junior Ginzburg was recently the target of Moscow preservationists for allegedly endangering a historic Moscow neighbourhood near Zaryadye with a development project.

Demidov, who also runs Zaryadye Park in addition to the contemporary art foundation, became a household name in the 1990s as one of Russia’s first music television VJs. He morphed under President Putin into the founder of a Russian Orthodox TV channel, had a hand in Kremlin youth and religion policy, and served a stint as deputy culture minister overseeing cinema.

Demidov launched the foundation in 2015 and was appointed director of Zaryadye Park in 2019. He has worked to reshape the park by building an underground museum of contemporary art displaying large exhibitions that are presented as a counterpoint to international art trends.

At the awards ceremony, Demidov read a statement from Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin saying that the prizewinners’ works “add fresh colours to the cultural palette of Moscow and wins the affections of fans of contemporary art”.

Zaryadye was designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the creators of Manhattan’s High Line park.

• International
• Schools directory
• Resources Jobs Schools directory News Search

Art Essay Basics NEA AQA

Subject: Art and design

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

3 January 2024

• Share through email
• Share through twitter
• Share through linkedin
• Share through facebook
• Share through pinterest

How to guide for the Essay element of A Level Art/Photography

Tes paid licence How can I reuse this?

Your rating is required to reflect your happiness.

It's good to leave some feedback.

Something went wrong, please try again later.

This resource hasn't been reviewed yet

To ensure quality for our reviews, only customers who have purchased this resource can review it

Report this resource to let us know if it violates our terms and conditions. Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch.

Not quite what you were looking for? Search by keyword to find the right resource:

What's it like to work on Robert Pirsig's Zen motorcycle? Museum curators can tell you.

Author Robert Pirsig left greasy fingerprints on pages of his shop manual while working on his mystical motorcycle, the one in the enduring 1974 classic "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

Years later, a few curators at the Smithsonian have an idea how he felt, because they've worked on the cycle, too.

That's because Pirsig's motorcycle, a 1966 Honda Super Hawk, will be exhibited at the Smithsonian’s  National Museum of American History  in Washington, D.C., starting April 15.

Learn more: How Robert Pirsig's cycle found a home in Smithsonian .

The exhibit, titled " Zen and the Open Road ," includes Pirsig's Honda, some motorcycling gear, and manuals and documents that are part of his book and cycling odyssey.

How did conservators prepare those cherished objects for the museum? With care and precision, it turns out.

The exhibit pays homage to Pirsig's famous book ...

"'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' is such an iconic book that anything associated with it has the same level of mystique," says Janice Ellis, the museum's senior book and paper conservator. "It's American-born philosophy."

Ellis worked on the motorcycle manuals Pirsig took with him on the 1968 ride, a rare photocopy of the typed Zen manuscript, and other documents.

You'll see that copy of Pirsig's manuscript, one of 10 he sent to prospective publishers, next to his motorcycle, tools, leather jacket, helmet and a first edition of the book.

... but 1966 Honda Super Hawk is the star

Pirsig's conversational style puts readers on the cycle with the very first sentence. The Smithsonian exhibit anticipates visitor interest by putting the cycle on center stage. Museum staffers were also impressed.

Co-workers, even those not connected with the exhibit, began stopping by to see the cycle themselves. They were fascinated, almost reverent, says Dawn Wallace, an objects conservator for the American history museum. She headed the group that spent many hours preparing it for exhibit.

"When we told them this was the motorcycle that Pirsig rode, the one he based his book on, you could see a light come on in their eyes when they realized what they were looking at," Wallace says.

The project "is really personal to a lot of people," she says. "Everyone's excited to see it go on display."

Conservators meticulously preserved cycle

When the museum takes possession of an item, "we don’t immediately open the crates the things are in," says Paul Johnston, a Smithsonian transportation curator who specializes in maritime artifacts, motorcycles, race cars and road transportation.

"We put the crate in the environment that it's going to be in and we let it sit for between a week and a month," he says. "That lets it acclimate to the environment."

The cycle was in decent shape, despite having not been on the road for a few years.

"My husband and his son had ridden it years and years ago, and they had worked on it throughout their ownership," says Wendy Pirsig, widow of Robert Pirsig, who died in 2017 at age 88.

Robert Pirsig "did his own maintenance, as he wrote about extensively in his book. That was going on for decades."

Later in life, when Robert Pirsig was in a wheelchair, he worked on the cycle "with someone who was more physically fit than he was," Wendy Pirsig says.

"When the bike came into the museum, it had just some dirt, a little bit of built-up residue on some surfaces," Wallace says. "It had some surface corrosion, nothing really in-depth or problematic. It just needed a little TLC and cleaning."

"All we did was a surface cleaning, with some cotton swabs and cotton wipes to remove the surface dirt or any built-up grime," Wallace says.

"You could definitely see an improved appearance," she says. "The chromed parts, for example, definitely shone more than they did before. But it still retains that historic appearance."

It took as many as 75 hours for the work to be completed, Wallace says. All the work was done in house.

Pirsig’s motorcycle was handled with kid – er, nitrile – gloves

As you might suspect, museum staffers don't just roll a vehicle into an exhibit hall.

"Every object is different," Wallace says. "The motorcycle was a little more complicated because it's large, it's got a lot of different parts and materials and surfaces."

And while the cycle will never be kick-started to life inside the museum, "We needed to be aware of the motorcycle's working condition," Wallace says.

Wallace says she checks for things like:

• Structural problems

Conservators then determine what should be done. "Are there things that need to be repaired? Or are they considered historic? We don't want to alter the history of it," she says.

"We work with the curator to learn the story of the object and what is trying to be told," Wallace says.

Staffers work in an object lab, a workspace about the size of a single-car garage. The space allows them to position the motorcycle for photographs and move around it to thoroughly clean it.

That means the room can get dirty. "We're working with grease, grime, and with different types of cleaners and solvents," Wallace says.

The team wears nitrile gloves at all times, which protect workers and the metal, plastic and rubber components of the object they're working on.

"If you touch a metal object, you may not see anything, but over the years, the oils in your hands are going to etch into the metal," Wallace says. "That will attract dirt. And that dirt will attract moisture, which can cause corrosion."

Besides cleaning, "we make sure that all the cycle's fluids are drained," Wallace says.

If they sit for too long, engine and transmission oils can settle, build up and get hard and cause problems, she says. Brake fluid, for example, is hygroscopic , which means it absorbs water and moisture. That causes metal parts to corrode.

"We introduce a long-term lubricant, usually a silicone-based lubricant or spray, into the system," Wallace says.

"It goes through the oil lines, so even if the motorcycle isn't running, we're not going to have pistons and things getting seized or corroded inside."

Preparation work included:

• Draining the gas tank and protecting the interior against corrosion.
• Draining the oil in the engine and transmission and replacing it with long-term lubricant.
• Removing the battery and disposing of it responsibly.
• Removing as much surface corrosion as possible and adding a protective chemical barrier.

The cycle will be placed on its center stand in the exhibit hall. An additional support stand will be added to keep both wheels off the floor to prevent wear spots on tires.

Documents preserve a 'window for future generations'

One of Pirsig's books was a 182-page Honda shop manual on how to fix the motorcycle. Smithsonian conservators found Pirsig's greasy fingerprints on inside pages with engine pistons, crankshafts and clutches, proof he was referring to the manual while getting his hands dirty handling engine parts.

"That's what's so lovely about it," says Ellis, the paper conservator. "He clearly used the manual, and used it well, to the point of it falling apart and him repairing it with what he had on hand, which was electrical tape."

Early in his book, Pirsig exhaustively lists what he took on the motorcycle ride. Ellis and other staffers worked on some of them for inclusion in the exhibit.

"It was really interesting to see the things that he carried with him on his trip," Ellis says. "It's one thing to have the luxury of working on an artifact, but it's another to have an artifact that clearly shows the person behind it."

Why save Pirsig's papers?

Preserving papers, documents and books takes much time and effort. What's the benefit of all that work?

"You do it so your kids or grandkids can understand a little bit about the life and culture of the maker or the user of the artifact,” Ellis says. "It provides a window for future generations to see the past."

In Pirsig's manual, "I love the electrical tape and the grease and the greasy fingerprints, because they tell you the way and the extent to which it was used," she says.

"It helps you get a sense of the person. To say he was hands-on is clear when you look at the artifacts he had."

Here's how to see the Smithsonian's Pirsig exhibit

Robert Pirsig's Honda Super Hawk and other items will be on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, 1300 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., 20560.

You'll find the cycle and other items in the " America on the Move " exhibition on the museum's first floor, in the East Wing.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day, except for Dec. 25. Admission is free and no tickets are required. For more information, go to  https://americanhistory.si.edu or call (202) 633-1000.

Photographs from Robert Pirsig's 1968 motorcycle ride are courtesy of Wendy Pirsig; museum photos are by Jaclyn Nash and are courtesy of the Smithsonian  Institution 's National Museum of American History.   Sourcing for this story includes USA TODAY Graphics reporting and research and interviews with staff of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Other sources include Montana State University; The Robert Pirsig Association ;  National Maritime Historical Society; the International Journal of Motorcycle Studies; Sea History Magazine; and the  National Institute of Health's National Library of Medicine .   Special thanks to Melinda Machado, director of the National Museum of American History 's  Office of Communications and Marketing, Integrated Communications.

Los Angeles Times News Quiz this week: Museum walls, water use and Intuit Dome’s opener

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

Welcome to the Los Angeles Times News Quiz. I’m Adam Tschorn, senior features writer, former game show question-and-answer man and your weekly quizmaster.

Each Friday, I serve up 10 handcrafted, California-focused, multiple-choice questions based on stories that appeared in The Times (in print or online) over the previous seven days. This week, we’re taking a look at stories about Easter heists , opening acts , running mates , diverted water and an AI-powered app that sounds like something out of the Onion .

All you need to do is keep up on the news of the week and answer these questions correctly.

Before we get to this week’s quiz, I wanted to share the results of the Los Angeles Times News Quiz live event at Molly Malone’s Irish Pub on April 10. During a speed round of 20 five-point questions — 10 about the venerable Fairfax District bar from The Times archives and another 10 riffed from the week’s news — seven teams competed for glory (and a few goodies from the Shop L.A. Times store .

A team calling themselves Dion is back baby! won top honors on a tie-breaker question. Next up is a behind-the-scenes peek at the News Quiz — and some more live game play — at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 20.

Are you ready to have some fun? I am. Let’s get started.

If last week’s news is still top of mind, why not try your luck with the previous News Quiz , which covered Times stories published from April 5 through 11 ?

More to Read

Los Angeles Times News Quiz for April 5, 2024: Quirky sea critters and fun at the fluff and fold

April 5, 2024

Los Angeles Times News Quiz for March 29, 2024: Jill Biden, baseball and busy beavers

March 29, 2024

I’m an ex-game show writer. Here’s how I make the Los Angeles Times News Quiz fun

March 27, 2024

Sign up for our L.A. Times Plants newsletter

At the start of each month, get a roundup of upcoming plant-related activities and events in Southern California, along with links to tips and articles you may have missed.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Senior features writer Adam Tschorn is a former small-town newspaper editor, game-show question-and-answer man and fashion scribe who joined the Los Angeles Times in 2007. He currently covers a wide range of pop-culture topics with a focus on cannabis culture. Holding a B.A. in philosophy and an M.A. in journalism, he feels perfectly suited to looking at things, asking “why?” and writing down the answers.

More From the Los Angeles Times

What does rebellious style look like? Enter artist Saturn Risin9

April 12, 2024

L.A. Affairs: He’s a Bruin. I’m a Trojan. Could I fight on in the name of love?

Travel & Experiences

How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Tia Mowry

Live DJ sets! Freebies! Exclusive drops! 12 L.A. shops going big for Record Store Day

Help | Advanced Search

Computer Science > Computation and Language

Title: llm2vec: large language models are secretly powerful text encoders.

Abstract: Large decoder-only language models (LLMs) are the state-of-the-art models on most of today's NLP tasks and benchmarks. Yet, the community is only slowly adopting these models for text embedding tasks, which require rich contextualized representations. In this work, we introduce LLM2Vec, a simple unsupervised approach that can transform any decoder-only LLM into a strong text encoder. LLM2Vec consists of three simple steps: 1) enabling bidirectional attention, 2) masked next token prediction, and 3) unsupervised contrastive learning. We demonstrate the effectiveness of LLM2Vec by applying it to 3 popular LLMs ranging from 1.3B to 7B parameters and evaluate the transformed models on English word- and sequence-level tasks. We outperform encoder-only models by a large margin on word-level tasks and reach a new unsupervised state-of-the-art performance on the Massive Text Embeddings Benchmark (MTEB). Moreover, when combining LLM2Vec with supervised contrastive learning, we achieve state-of-the-art performance on MTEB among models that train only on publicly available data. Our strong empirical results and extensive analysis demonstrate that LLMs can be effectively transformed into universal text encoders in a parameter-efficient manner without the need for expensive adaptation or synthetic GPT-4 generated data.

Submission history

Access paper:.

• HTML (experimental)
• Other Formats

References & Citations

• Google Scholar
• Semantic Scholar

BibTeX formatted citation

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Code, data and media associated with this article, recommenders and search tools.

• Institution

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .