Art History & Visual Culture and Drama

Art history and visual culture combined with drama is a pairing that connects two disciplines both deeply concerned with how human beings create meaning through performance, image, and spectacle. Art history develops your ability to analyse and interpret visual works, understanding how paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, and other images function in their historical and cultural contexts and what they reveal about the societies that made them. Drama explores the art of performance in all its forms, from classical theatrical texts to contemporary devised work, asking how meaning is made in the encounter between performer and audience.

At the University of Exeter, this three-year full-time degree develops both disciplines to honours level, giving you the analytical depth and practical creativity that each requires. In the art history and visual culture strand, you will learn to read images carefully, engage with critical and theoretical frameworks, and situate visual works within their histories, examining how the visual arts have shaped and been shaped by politics, religion, gender, and power. The drama strand develops your understanding of theatre and performance alongside your own creative and critical practice, from the study of dramatic texts and theatre history to the making of work in performance contexts.

Exeter has provided students with access to work experience in local arts centres and museums, and the university's location in a culturally rich region gives you proximity to the institutions where art and performance come to life. A sandwich year, a year abroad, and work placement opportunities are all features of the programme.

You will develop skills in visual analysis, historical research, performance practice, and critical argument that are applicable across the cultural sector and beyond.

Graduates go on to careers in museums, galleries, theatre and performance, arts administration, education, journalism, curatorial work, and the cultural sector. Many pursue postgraduate study in art history, drama, or cultural studies.