Fine Arts electives

Fine Arts elective courses available in 2026.

Digital Course Outlines

Digital Course Outlines are published many months before the start of each semester and contain detailed information about each elective course. This includes the topic description, learning outcomes, assessment methods, and academic staff. 

You need to review the Digital Course Outline for Fine Arts electives so that you can make an informed decision about your choices.

Degree elective requirements

BFA students

As part of your degree, you need to successfully complete:

  • At least 30 points of Creative Technologies electives
  • At least 60 points of Contemporary Practice electives and
  • 75 points of additional Fine Arts electives (FINEARTS 205-236)

You should use My Programme Requirements to track how you are progressing with the enrolment requirements of your degree. The programme page has an indicative programme structure diagram, which can be used as a guide as well. 

In the BFA, you can take up to 30 points of elective courses outside of Fine Arts or a 45-point Arts or Science module. If taken, these courses count toward the '75 points of additional Fine Arts electives' requirement.

BFA conjoint students

You need to complete a series of Fine Arts elective courses and the number will vary depending on your conjoint degree and you will need to plan this. You need to use My Programme Requirements to check how many electives are available on the Fine Arts side of your conjoint, and how you are progressing with your degree. 

Fine Arts elective enrolment

  • There are a limited number of spaces available in each seminar and these operate on a first-come-first-serve enrolment basis. The enrolment limits on each elective cannot be overridden.
  • If an elective is full and you are interested in it, then keep checking over time to see if another student drops their enrolment and so makes a space available for you to enrol in.

Creative Technologies electives - 15pts

Semester One:

  • FINEARTS 220  -  Creative Technologies: Ngā Toi Taketake - Aho Whatu Rua / Fibre and Textiles 
  • FINEARTS 222  -  Creative Technologies: Printmaking
  • FINEARTS 226  -  Creative Technologies: Digital Photography
  • FINEARTS 229  -  Creative Technologies: Painted Images
  • FINEARTS 230  -  Creative Technologies: Constructing Sculpture

Semester Two:

  • FINEARTS 221  -  Creative Technologies: Ngā Toi Taketake- Te Ara Kōwhatu / Pathways of Stone 
  • FINEARTS 223  - Creative Technologies: Publication
  • FINEARTS 227  - Creative Technologies: Analogue Photography
  • FINEARTS 228  - Creative Technologies: Painting Materiality and Process
  • FINEARTS 231  -  Creative Technologies: Shaping Sculpture
  • FINEARTS 236  - Drawing as Creative Thinking (Online only)
  • FINEARTS 224 - Creative Technologies: Moving Image

Contemporary Practice Electives - 30pts

Semester One:

  • FINEARTS 241  -  Indigeneity and Culture: Power and Place
  • FINEARTS 242  -  Image, Object, and Materiality: What is an Image?
  • FINEARTS 246  -  Systems, Ecologies and Environments: Art in the Anthropocene

Semester Two:

  • FINEARTS 245  -  Embodiment, Identity and Agency: Art and the Self
  • FINEARTS 247  -  Systems, Ecologies and Environments: Embodied Nature
  • FINEARTS 249  -  Technology and Material Futures: World-making