Department of Languages and Cultures facilities
Our facilities support Visual Arts practice and education.
Our Visual Arts building, located at La Trobe’s Bendigo campus, is a three-level purpose-built facility designed to nurture multidisciplinary experimentation and creative community.
Our workshops and dedicated studios offer students professional, supportive and inclusive spaces to experience a wide range of media – and develop the confidence and technical skills required to hone their independent creative practices.
Our specialised Visual Arts facilities support the production of artworks across a range of creative mediums. Students work alongside our experienced technical team, gaining experience in the safe use of our painting and drawing studios; photographic lighting studio and photographic darkroom; large format print lab; sculpture and ceramics workshops; and multi-functional printmaking workshop.
From day one, our students have access to their own dedicated space in our light-filled studios. This large, shared student space encourages a collective community of practice. Our in-house galleries on the second and third floors provide students with opportunities to present their works in a professional setting, offering them valuable industry experience.
Our facilities include:
Our print laboratory houses our large format printer, where students learn how to prepare digital files and work alongside a technical to produce museum quality ink jet prints.
Our large printmaking workshop is set up to support a range of print processes, from screen printing to etching, photo release and relief printing. Students learn a range of print processes in their first year of study and are supported by our technician to develop their expertise. Annual multi-year level master classes are run by industry experts to further support student engagement and capacity in printmaking.
Our drawing studio accommodates large groups of students engaging in life drawing and painting classes, with multi-level floor space that allows for perspectival observation. Our painting workshop features all the equipment required to teach students how to stretch and build their own painting supports.
Our photographic darkroom gives students a complete range of equipment and facilities to produce high quality black and white analogue photographic work. From the manual developing of film through to hand printing, we have a fleet of 15 enlargers and a safe setup for working with wet chemical photography.
Our lighting studio features a range of professional quality studio lights, a large cyclorama, various studio backdrops, a product table and a camera storeroom stocked with digital and analogue camera and projection equipment. Our students are introduced to this space in the first year of their studies and are encouraged to build capacity working and experimenting in this professional setting.
We have several sculpture workshops to facilitate the fabrication of work in a range of materials including clay, plaster and timber. Our woodworking equipment allows students to work alongside a technician to gain proficiency in the use of basic workshop machinery. Our technician also assists students with more complex machinery to realise their projects. Our extensive ceramic facilities consist of a large workshop housing 12 pottery wheels, an abundance of bench space, a glazing lab and several electric and gas kilns.