MA Fine Art

Course summary:

The MA Fine Art Course supports a broad range of experimental practices.

This course will test and challenge your individual practice, bringing it into a contemporary critical context. Events, exhibitions and discussion help to build and challenge both individual and collective practices. The international profile of the course means that the community we foster is culturally diverse.

Our research based teaching strategies actively seek to extend your experience and skills. We work responsively to the changing needs of students to develop collaborative projects in relation to their own work. Recent groups have explored 3D imaging technology, field recording, digital platforms and education workshops.

External collaborations and opportunities produce rich and varied contexts to challenge orthodoxies and to develop new modes of practice. The course actively maintains its longstanding links with cultural institutions and organisations as well as seeking to develop new partnerships. We offer a broad range of professional experiences to students, from working with major public institutions to small artist-led spaces. Through such collaborations you will learn to bring works into a public context, experiment with forms of exhibition making, learn education and professional presentation skills.

This course is part of the Art Programme.

Great reasons to apply:

• The MA Fine Art studios are located in an independent building in Archway. The course gives students their own space in a self contained studio building facilitating independent working practices and encouraging self-organisation. Students have access to workshops and facilities both at Archway and at the King's Cross campus
• MA Fine Art enables you to pursue your studies whilst also undertaking part-time employment, internships or care responsibilities. You are expected to commit 30 hours per week to your studies; your taught input will normally be scheduled over a maximum of two to three days per week during term time. The pacing of the course allows for thoughtful and risk taking development over the two years. It allows time for questioning and radical change
• As a student on MA Fine Art you will also be part of the Postgraduate community - CSM and UAL wide. This offers a wide range of opportunities to counterpoint your work on the course with input from across programmes, colleges and disciplines.
• Opportunities to work and show collaboratively are an important aspect of the course. These can include international exchanges, external exhibitions and trans-disciplinary partnerships, publication and site specific events. We have recently worked with Tate Modern, Museum of London, Matts Gallery, The Agency, Banner Repeater, TAP Southend and internationally with Tokyo University of the Arts, the International Printmaking Union, ENSAV La Cambre, Brussels
• Our graduates are an active community. They exhibit all over the world and participate in residency programmes, performance and film festivals and practice in the community as well as pursuing careers as critics, writers, curators, teachers. Some progress to further research degree study. Recent graduates of the course are regularly featured in exhibitions such as Bloomberg New Contemporaries and the Threadneedle Prize
• From the outset the programme of study develops your research skills and knowledge of research methods in art-related fields. Our seminar programme provides opportunities to get to know the research community here at CSM. Research underpins the critical exploration of your work, its structuring, context and communication, and drives insight into contemporary cultural debates.

Anyone Interested.

Course details:

Synergies in our Fine Art Programme create a dynamic context for exploring practices and issues within contemporary culture. In its extended full-time mode MA Fine Art gives you the flexibility to access London's richly varied opportunities for work and study while maximising your personal and professional development.

MA Fine Art provides an extensive final unit of 120 credits (45 weeks) enabling continuous development and realisation of a significant programme of work.

MA Fine Art supports and is shaped by:

• Diversity of professional directions, aspirations and cultural perspectives
• Reflective research-based practice including writing as practice in fine art
• An interrogation of what informs making and how making generates knowledge
• Independent study and practice and critical reflection on definitions of art and its potential within social space
• Exploration of the parameters of contemporary art, building on knowledge of the contexts and frameworks of practice
• Dialogue to determine the conditions of possibility for contemporary art.

About this course:

• MA Fine Art lasts 60 weeks structured as two consecutive periods of 30 weeks each (i.e. two academic years) in its 'extended full-time mode'
• MA Fine Art is credit rated at 180 credits, and comprises 2 units: Unit 1 (60 credits) and Unit 2 (120 credits)
• Students successfully achieving Units 1 may exit at this point with the award of Postgraduate Certificate
• Both units must be passed in order to achieve the MA, but the classification of the award of MA derives from the mark for Unit 2 only.

In year one we expect you to commit an average of 40 hours per week. In year two your study is predominantly self-managed but we expect you to commit an average of 20 hours per week. Across the two years, therefore, you're expected to commit an average of 30 hours per week.

Course structure:

Artists today recognise the breadth and diversity of the social, cultural, economic and technological contexts for contemporary art. This MA Fine Art course engages with and contributes to change and development in the expanded field of art. Although its core concern is with practice, it promotes the hybrid nature of current art practices by exploring the boundaries of, and the interface between, art and critical ideas.

MA Fine Art actively promotes its identity as a multidisciplinary course focusing on criticality and process through a flexible, mobile approach to contemporary fine art practice and its discourses. We support innovative and experimental practice through the application of ideas, media and materials. At graduation you'll have achieved a resolved level of critical thinking, deepened your understanding of contemporary debates and research methods, and made your practice more professional.

International contemporary art increasingly celebrates the integrated nature of theory and practice. Central to your experience of the course is a growing awareness of the relationship between these elements. MA Fine Art provides a unique and challenging environment in which to establish agendas that will shape the cultural environment of tomorrow.

Industry collaborations:

Opportunities to work and show collaboratively are an important aspect of the course. These can include international exchanges, external exhibitions and trans-disciplinary partnerships, publication and site specific events. We have recently worked with Tate Modern, Museum of London, Matts Gallery, The Agency, Banner Repeater, TAP Southend and internationally with Tokyo University of the Arts, the International Printmaking Union, ENSAV La Cambre, Brussels, Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

In addition to this we also run the Postgraduate Auction. The auction happens in the autumn term of year two, giving students a direct experience of a live commercial auction. Alongside donated works from alumni and supporters, each student is asked to put up a piece for sale. Proceeds pay for the Interim Show and the catalogue.

Fees & Funding:

Home/EU fee Tuition fees for 2019/20 -

University of the Arts London (UAL) is Europe’s largest specialist art and design university. Its unique creative community is made up of six renowned Colleges, each with its own world-class reputation: Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins, Chelsea College of Arts, London College of Communication, London College of Fashion and Wimbledon College of Arts.

UAL is the world’s sixth best University for Art and Design in the QS World University Rankings 2018. Offering an extensive range of courses in art, design, fashion, communication and performing arts, UAL is the main talent pipeline to the UK’s creative industries.

Home to a diverse community of over 18,000 students from 129 countries, UAL has a track record for launching and furthering careers. Our graduates can be found in every part and at every level of the creative and cultural sectors, from heads of global business to self-employed practitioners, and on shortlists for awards ranging from the Turner Prize to the Oscars.

Building on UAL’s association with some of the most original thinkers in the arts, students and staff are inspired to challenge convention, generate new ideas and nurture talent. Home to award-winning staff and students for more than a century, UAL’s Colleges are at the forefront of learning, creativity and practice in their specialist subjects. This close-knit College structure offers opportunities for learning and enquiry for people at all stages of their creative development.