Masters Degrees (Concept Art)

Do you have a strong drawing ability and want to study concept art and develop a range of specialist skills?

Course details

This course focuses on games and animation but is also suitable for students interested in related areas such as film, comics and illustration. You will undertake project based course work supported by dedicated staff with a wealth of practical experience of both the commercial and academic worlds.

Your teaching is supported by close links to industry. In previous years we have had a range of visiting lecturers – a senior concept artist from Double Negative, an art director from Ubisoft, the director of Atomhawk and representatives from Dreamworks and Microsoft. We have also had visits from a range of freelancers specialising in areas such as character design, storyboarding and matte painting. Industry experts are actively involved in setting you tasks and providing feedback.

What you study

The postgraduate course covers specialist areas – character design, environment design and storytelling. You also focus on core drawing skills including regular life drawing classes. The course concludes with a final project – we support you to create a brief that enables you to specialise in your chosen area of interest.

You develop the cognitive and technical skills to equip you for enterprise, employment and further academic research. As a graduate, practising artist and designer or mid-career professional, you can engage in reflective creative practice at an advanced level.

Modules
-Character and Environment Design
-Concept Art Practice
-Drawing for Concept Artists
-Master's Project: Concept Art for Games and Animation
-Visual Storytelling

Modules offered may vary.

Teaching

You experience a number of different approaches to learning and teaching including:
-Lecture sessions
-Tutorial and practical sessions
-Workshops and studio sessions
-Freelance sessions and workshops
-Online and blended delivery
-Self-directed study

Critical reflection is key to successful problem solving and essential to the creative process. To develop your own reflective practice at an advanced level, you test and assess your solutions against criteria that you develop in the light of your research.

You are assessed through the production of a portfolio of creative work and a written report. Feedback is given during lectures and tutorials, and using online methods.

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About the course

The Aberystwyth MA in Fine Art and Art History provide you with an excellent opportunity to develop your artistic skills, understanding and technical aptitudes as you strive to pursue your art. In every area of this course, technical, stylistic, and conceptual experimentation is enthusiastically encouraged and you will be encouraged to contribute to the School’s academic knowledge of art history through your own research. You will also have the opportunity to submit articles for publication to contextualize your practice and develop your engagement with critical and public opinion. In the most recent Research Excellence Framework assessment (2014) it was found that 75% of publications were of an internationally recognised standard or higher.

One of the central strengths of this course is your personal development as an artist. You will be challenged to experiment, test hypotheses, and extend your field of action in preparation for exhibitions. You will develop a portfolio of work that is a creative and imaginative interpretation of subject matter demonstrating the acquisition and refinement of technological dexterity and stylistic sophistication. You will also benefit from gaining new insight into careers in fine art, defining concepts of the subject and the crucial importance of professional identity.

The course is a full-time programme, taught over one year, and is divided into two parts over three semesters. In part one, you will study a number of core modules, together worth a total of 120 credits, whilst directing your own study in part two where you will explore and resolve your chosen artistic problem, culminating in the second of your two public exhibitions. This study is equivalent to a Master’s dissertation project and is worth 60 credits.

The subject of this final public exhibition will be agreed in consultation with your supervisor(s) and, in tackling it, you will be encouraged to develop and sustain a self-initiated programme of work. Subject to the satisfactory completion of the study modules and exhibition, the MA in Fine Art and Art History is awarded.

Upon graduation from the MA in Fine Art and Art History, you will have demonstrated artistic excellence, personal rigor and critical engagement with yours and others’ work, which will define you as an artist. You will be well-prepared for the realities – both creative and practical – of life as a professional artist.

This degree will suit you:

- If you wish to develop your personal, creative, productive, and imaginative artistic abilities;
- If you wish to be stimulated by vigorous intellectual inquiry into Art;
- If you aim to pursue a career in Art or serious effort to exhibit your work in public and critical arenas;
- If you wish to develop a conceptual, practical and historical framework for your art.

Course content

Core modules:

Dissertation
Exhibition 1: Consolidation
Vocational Practice

Contact Time

Approximately 10-14 hours a week in the first two semesters. During semester three you will arrange your level of contact time with your assigned supervisor.

Assessment

The taught part of the course (Part 1) is delivered and assessed through lectures, student seminars, practical exercises and exhibitions. Successful completion of your exhibition (Part 2) leads to the award of an MA.

Employability

Every aspect of the Aberystwyth Master’s in Fine Art and Art History programme is designed to enhance your employability. Successful completion of this degree is in itself certain to do so by building your CV; but more significant is the hugely enhanced array of knowledge, abilities and skills with which you will graduate.

Your pursuit of personal development as an artist, coupled with increased critical faculties, will make you a strong candidate for any post where people and opinions meet. Likewise, the study skills, technical knowledge and hands-on experience of artistic processes will give you a tremendous advantage in employment within the Arts. Similarly, other modules will provide opportunities to gain experiences and transferable skills. By managing the practicalities of exhibition preparation, installation, and curation, you also gain direct experience in every aspect of events and venue management. Though the conditions may be subject-specific, the skills you will learn in the process are highly marketable.

Whether your chosen career path points you towards drawing, painting or print work, or towards criticism, collecting, art journalism, your Masters Degree in Fine Art and Art History from Aberystwyth University will signal to prospective employers your commitment to personal excellence, professional rigour and technical innovation.

Professional Independence

The course acknowledges the difficulty artists face in the transition from the requirements of a degree level course to the emerging independent direction required of professional practising artists. By playing an active, learning-based role in the operation of the School’s galleries, you will gain an insight into the work needed to sustain a busy gallery. You will stage public exhibitions in the School’s galleries and elsewhere, and part of the course’s assessment relates to your performance as a professional, exhibiting artist.

Studio work is designed to increase students’ technical possibilities, and the School is particularly well equipped in all areas of the graphic arts. The course seeks to assist the student by developing individual abilities and direction in a certain area of art practice to the highest standards possible. In addition to this subject-specific training, this MA is designed to give you a range of transferable skills that you can apply in a variety of situations. Whether this is further study, personal artistic pursuits or employment, you will be better equipped to pursue success in your chosen field.

Your work in the Contemporary Context

This course does not operate in isolation, and you will examine your own work in the wider context of contemporary practice. As mentioned above, your assessed exhibitions will give you first-hand experience of the vital but often daunting rite of holding up your work for scrutiny by your tutors, peers, critics and the public. You will also encounter and engage with the debate in cultural theory regarding the interface between art practise, art theory and the concept of visual culture. By considering its implication for the study of fine art and art history, your course of study encourages you to improve your capacity for conducting a critical review of yours and others’ work through discussion, presentation and writing.

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This Masters is concerned with outlining and critically evaluating the concept of the ‘avant-garde’ both theoretically and in terms of its applicability to representative areas of 20th-century art. Dealing with art from the early twentieth century to the present, you will investigate concepts such as historical avant-garde, neo-avant-garde, and post-avant-garde, paying close attention to the theorists who have elaborated these ideas.

Why this programme

◾Glasgow’s civic and university collections are some of the richest and most diverse in Europe and are of international standing. You are granted privileged access to the extensive collections in our own Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery.
◾You have the opportunity to take part in a project-based work placement, where you can explore a possible future career while meeting professional practitioners and developing your skills and experience.
◾If you want to learn from world-leading researchers and develop expert knowledge of 20th-century Avant-Gardes, this programme is for you.
◾Our research forum provides you with a lively and stimulating introduction to methodological debates within art history. It provides a sense of art history’s own history as well as contemporary concerns and practice, examining the beliefs and values that have informed various forms of historical and visual analysis and enquiry. It is focused around a series of seminars or workshops run by members of staff and visiting academics.

Programme structure

Closely focused on the visual and historical specificities of the subject, the core teaching will have you examining the politically oppositional and ‘transgressive’ impulses of the avant-garde.

You will interpret ‘transgression’ in the widest sense and in relation to a range of diverse historical contexts, including: the anti-art concerns of Dada; the political tensions arising from conflicts between nationalist and internationalist currents in European art of the early 20th century and the Nietzschian/Bataillean testing of the boundaries of conventional moral positions, particularly regarding sexual identity and the body.

The optional courses available are closely geared to the research interests of our staff. Their content will draw upon current exhibitions and debates.

You will take five core courses and one optional course. This is followed by a period of self-study towards a dissertation 15,000 words in length (including footnotes but excluding bibliography) and will be on a topic chosen in consultation with the tutors and the programme convenor.

Core courses
◾Research methods in practice
◾Theories of the Avant Garde
◾Readings in Duchamp: anti-art, blasphemy, sexuality
◾Art, embodiment, transgression
◾Dada in Switzerland and Germany.

Optional courses

You may choose from the following options in the College of Arts
◾a Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) course: 2D Digitisation (Theory and Practice)
◾a course from the MLitt Modernities: Modernism, Modernity & Post-Modernity run by English Literature
◾a course from elsewhere in the College of Arts, subject to the approval of the programme convenor.

Or from courses run by History of Art
◾Art in the making: modern and Avant-Garde techniques
◾Independent study
◾Work placement.

Study trip

Students on this programme are invited to take part in an optional study trip of approximately one week, which is funded by the student. Previous destinations include Berlin and Dublin.

Career prospects

Career opportunities include positions in curation, digitisation and research within museums and other cultural and heritage institutions. The programme also provides an excellent platform for you to move onto PhD studies and an academic career.

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Through object-based, interdisciplinary research, this Masters programme focuses on the act of making and everything that entails. We study studio practices from a variety of disciplines, their materials and techniques, but also intentions and concept. We examine art technological sources to register the artist’s voice, and other testimonies on artistic practice, make reconstructions of historical recipes and modern techniques to understand practices, ageing and its consequences as well as other changes artworks go through. Researching this all-inclusive story of an artefact is known as technical art history. It is an exciting and rapidly growing field involving (technical) art historians, scientists, conservators while also reaching out to other disciplines such as economic and social history, history of science, anthropology and aesthetics.

Why this programme

◾You will work with objects and benefit from staff contacts including those at: the City Collections, Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, Glasgow Museums, National Museums and National Galleries of Scotland, National Trust Scotland and Historic Scotland.
◾You will take a study trip to Amsterdam or Munich, visiting major museums and their conservation studios and research labs as well as research institutions working in the field of technical art history.
◾You have the opportunity to take part in a project-based work placement engaging in interdisciplinary research, where you can explore a possible future career while meeting professional practitioners and developing your skills and experience.
◾You will benefit from guest speakers from the technical art history field, broadening your horizon and offering you network occasions and research contacts.
◾You will participate in two reconstruction workshops of historical painting techniques, as well as workshops on the reconstructions of pigment recipes and scientific examination techniques.

Programme structure

Drawing upon the expertise of an interdisciplinary team, the programme will include taught and research components as well as practical workshops and work placements.

This MLitt develops your skills in object-based research, as well as examining the authenticity, attribution and dating of art works – and their change and survival. You do not need any background in science or conservation. We will provide you with the right tools to understand what science can deliver, what conservators can do, and what role you can play in this truly interdisciplinary field.

You will take five core courses and one optional course. This is followed by a period of self-study towards a dissertation 15,000 words in length (including footnotes but excluding bibliography) and will be on a topic chosen in consultation with the tutors and the programme convenor.

Core courses

◾Research methods in practice
◾Art in the making: historical techniques
◾Art in the making: modern and Avant-Garde techniques
◾The authentic art work
◾Testimonies on painters' practice: documentary and visual sources

Optional courses

You may choose from the following options
◾Work placement
◾Independent study

Career prospects

Career opportunities include curatorial positions in museums and galleries, working with collections within cultural heritage organisations, or in the commercial environment of auction houses performing object-based research including technical investigation. The programme will also prepare you for a further postgraduate education in conservation or academic research.

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The programme is designed for students who wish to take up the challenge of contemporary curating as an artistic, social and critical undertaking, and who wish to develop their professional practice in this area. http://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/mfa-curating/

This two-part programme is designed to develop professional and academic excellence in the field of contemporary curatorial practice. It's aimed at curators and those with related academic and practical experience who wish to achieve professional excellence in their practice, to innovate in the expanding field of curatorial practice.

MFA Curating at Goldsmiths focuses in-depth on aesthetic, social, political and philosophical questions that are brought to bear in any place or at any event in which contemporary art is situated.

The programme is designed to provide a practice-led research context for students at any stage of their professional practice.

It also enables you to experiment and innovate in the expanded field of curatorial pedagogy, to collaborate on an interdisciplinary basis and extend your and other students' knowledge through this process.

Goldsmiths' MFA Curating programme is recognised worldwide for producing highly qualified curators and other arts professionals.

Our graduates find employment in top international museums, commercial galleries, auction houses, magazines, alternative spaces and not-for-profit organisations. Others choose employment as artist’s studio managers; arts education programmers; museum public talks and events organisers; gallery archivists and registrars.

Recent speakers

Recent speakers have included: Iwona Blazwick OBE, Whitechapel Gallery, London; Francesco Bonami, MCA Chicago; Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, 14th Istanbul Biennial; Julia Bryan-Wilson, University of California at Berkeley; Céline Condorelli, artist and co-founder of Eastside Projects, Birmingham; Diedrich Diedrichsen, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna; Alex Farquharson, Nottingham Contemporary; Ryan Gander, artist; Mark Godfrey, Tate Modern, London; Boris Groys, Center for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe; Matthew Higgs, White Columns, New York; Jens Hoffman, Jewish Museum, New York; Laura Hoptman, MoMA, New York; Anthony Huberman, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco; James Lingwood, Artangel, London; Gregor Muir, ICA, London; Paul O’Neill, CCS Bard College, New York; Scott Rothkopf, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Adrian Searle, The Guardian; Polly Staple, Chisenhale Gallery, London.

Recent Visiting Tutors

Chris Evans, artist; Lisa La Feuvre, Henry Moore Institute; Goldin+Senneby, Stockholm-based artists; Luis Jacob, Toronto-based artist; Tom Morton, frieze magazine; Paul O Neill, critic and curator; Sally O'Reilly, independent critic and curator; Mike Sperlinger, Lux; Rob Tuffnell, 83 Page Street; Alex Sainsbury, Raven Row; Lucy Byatt, Contemporary Art Society; Gavin Wade, Eastside Projects; Lydia Yee, Barbican Art Gallery; Form/Content

Work experience

The Tate Modern annually offers two hands-on internships to Goldsmiths MFA Curating students, who are given the opportunity to work directly on an exhibition matched to the students' interests. Accepted Goldsmiths curating students are given details on how to apply for a Tate Modern internship prior to starting the school year.

Other institutions with which the Goldsmiths MFA Curating programme has collaborated on real-life curatorial projects include 176/Zabludowicz Collection, London; Form/Content, London; ICA/Fourth Plinth Project, London, and more.

Each year, part 1 Goldsmiths curating students are invited to pitch an exhibition proposal to the Government Art Collection, using works from this important national collection as the basis for a contemporary art exhibition. The successful projects are realised during the final year.

Guest Research Student

If you are an international student and would like to study a 'tailor-made' programme (for up to a year), you may be interested in applying as a Guest Research Student.

Contact the department
If you have specific questions about the degree, contact Helena Reckitt.

Modules & Structure

In Year One, you're introduced to a series of curatorial concepts and practices through group analysis and guided research. There are also group seminars that look into significant ideas in philosophy and cultural theory to help you think broadly about your own practice

In Year Two, intensive workshops look in depth at a set of artistic and cultural themes chosen by the students. In Year Two you further develop independent curatorial research and practice, working either on your own ideas or with a London-based gallery or institution. The summer term of Year One acts as a transition to Year Two.

Government Art Collection

Each year, part 1 Goldsmiths curating students are invited to pitch an exhibition proposal to the Government Art Collection, using works from this important national collection as the basis for a contemporary art exhibition. The successful projects are realised during the final year.

Skills
Independent research and practice; public presentation; oral and written communication; project development; exhibition administration; concept development; collaboration; intellectual analysis; catalogue, essay and review writing; research organisation and presentation.

Careers

Graudates from the MFA in Curating go on to work in galleries and museums; as managers and directors in commercial galleries; independent curators; cultural policy makers, teachers and academics; writers and critics.

Recent employers of our MFA Curating students and graduates include:

Public sector

Tate Britain, London
Tate Modern, London
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Documenta, Kassel
Venice Biennale
Athens Biennial
Sydney Biennale
Portikus, Frankfurt
Witte de With, Rotterdam
FRAC Lorraine
Hayward Gallery, London
Hayward Touring Exhibitions, London
Museo d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
Modern Art Oxford
London Olympic Park (art sector)
Artists Space, New York
Henry Moore Institute, Leeds
Art on the Underground, London
Art Space, Auckland, New Zealand
Austrian Cultural Foundation. London
Romanian Cultural Institute, London
Spike Island, Bristol
Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham

Private sector

176 Gallery, Zabludowicz Collection, London
Bloomberg Space, London
Christie’s, Amsterdam
Deitch Projects, New York
Deste Foundation, Athens
Frith Street Gallery, London
Haunch of Venison, Berlin
Kadist Art Foundation, Paris
Kate MacGarry Gallery, London
Kurimanzutto, Mexico City
Lisson Gallery, London
Matt’s Gallery, London
David Roberts Collection, London
White Cube Gallery, London
Vienna Art Fair, Vienna

Publications

Artforum, New York
Frieze, London
Flash Art International, Milan

Some of our graduates have founded their own projects and galleries, among these:

Lu Jie, Founder and Director, Long March Space, Beijing (number 95 in Art Review Power 100 List 2009)
Sarah Wang, Founding Director of the Creative Intelligence Agency, London
Zhang Wei, Founder and Director, Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou

Other entry requirements

Work experience is absolutely essential to demonstrate that you have a clear sense of current trends and activities in contemporary art. This should be demonstrated through your experience, and expanded upon in your personal statement.

Funding

Please visit http://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/fees-funding/ for details.

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Programme description

This programme is currently under review for the 2017/18 Academic Year. Please be aware that the programme structure and course availability is subject to change.

This programme encourages practices that are speculative and reflective, supporting work in a range of media. It is concerned with ways of learning that are experiential – embodied through and understood by the acquisition of a practice.

During the late 20th century, developments within visual art introduced new processes and situations, which resulted in an expanded concept of artistic practice.

Media-related disciplines supported by the programme include sculpture, painting and printmaking, photography, audio-visual and new media. The programme also encompasses approaches to practice that are non media-specific, including intermedia, time-based arts, performance, installation, public art and art writing.

Programme structure

You may complete the MA in one year, or continue on to the MFA. You will have access to a designated studio space and a wide range of studio equipment, technicians and resources, including printmaking, metal, wood, casting, painting, photography, reprographic and digital facilities.

Our students often work in groups across subject areas in the School of Art and collaborate throughout the year on critical, creative and curatorial projects. This gives you a unique opportunity to integrate the fields of art practice, art writing and curating, culminating in an exhibition of your own work or in a research project of your own design.

We regularly organise field trips and offer short residency and project opportunities with our local and international partners.

The programme also involves the theoretical study of this family of media and approaches, drawing on related fields and methods.

Facilities

Students on this programme will benefit from studio-based learning in Edinburgh College of Art's (ECA) historic Lauriston Place campus, along with the exhibitions and events associated with a vibrant art college. The art college experience will be complemented by the University's extensive range of student support facilities, its libraries, student societies, and student accommodation.

Our purpose-built studios are adaptable, serving both as working studios and project and exhibition spaces. Our workshops and foundry provide excellent accommodation for working in wood, metal, mould-making, casting and carving and there are facilities for working with sound, digital imaging and video editing.

The programme develops from a broad to a specialist understanding of the technical resources and validating contexts in which artists work today, drawing inspiration and nourishment from the experience of our international student cohort.

Career opportunities

This programme enables you to develop an ambitious art practice as well as providing you with the organisational and economic knowledge required to thrive as a self-employed artist. You will also be qualified to teach studio art in higher education and to work in the contemporary art sector.

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The production designer plays a vital role in creating real or imagined worlds on the screen. This MA course in Production Design develops individual creativity and teaches technical skills essential for a career in film and television.

-Study in a collaborative filmmaking environment
-Design for live action shoots
-Use traditional and digital design techniques
-Work in fully-equipped design studios
-Work on both fiction and animation films
-Have opportunities and facilities for set builds
-Unlike other schools, all production costs are met by the School.

We welcome EU/EEA Students. Those accepted onto courses starting in 2018 will have their fees guaranteed at the UK rate for both years of the course. Postgraduate students can apply for a loan to help with their studies via the Student Loans Company Loans. A £ 10,000 loan is available to contribute to course and living costs. The Post Graduate Loan is only open to EU/EEA and UK Students who normally live in England. It is not currently available to Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland Students. Find out more here: https://nfts.co.uk/fees-funding/funding-guide

COURSE OVERVIEW

Uniquely in the UK, our MA Production Design students study alongside students of other filmmaking disciplines, engaging in a series of productions where working methods replicate professional practice.

The advent of digital technology has brought in new design tools and ways of working and this course promotes a lively interface between old and new methods. 3D and 2D computer techniques and Concept Art are taught alongside traditional skills such as set sketching, orthographic draughting, design geometry and model-making. The course offers the opportunity to specialise in Concept Art, particularly in the second year. Design students apply their skills to live action and animation films, television programmes and commercials, in the studio and on location, using built sets and green screen. Relevant business and management skills are also taught, equipping students to manage a small art department, its budget, personnel and logistical schedules, studio procedures and set decorating. Studio visits and placements familiarise students with a working art department and inspire them with actual film sets.

All staff, permanent and visiting, are Industry practitioners and students develop close links with the film and television industry while they train.

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This interdisciplinary programme will equip you with valuable skills and a critical understanding of issues in curatorship, museology and museum management.

You’ll develop your understanding of the ways in which historians and cultural theorists have interpreted and represented architecture, material culture and museums over the past 2,000 years. You’ll look at different methods of display and interpretation and the methodologies behind museum practice and country house collections. Then you’ll choose from optional modules on topics such as cultural theory, sculpture, Hollywood icons or cinema.

At the same time, you’ll develop practical skills. You’ll work on an interpretation project in our Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery and you’ll even undertake a negotiated work placement in your second semester. Supported by the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage, you’ll gain the knowledge and skills for a successful career in the museum and art gallery sector.

You’ll study in the heart of a cultural hub for this diverse and vibrant region. Leeds is home to a national museum, nine council-run museums, galleries and heritage sites and many private and charitable museums and galleries.

We’re also a short bus or train journey away from everything the rest of Yorkshire has to offer, from The Hepworth Wakefield to the National Media Museum, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Bronte Parsonage Museum. We have close links with many of these cultural institutions to support your practical learning.

Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage

All students on the degree become members of the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage and enjoy opportunities from networking events and links to alumni to conferences, seminars and reading groups.

Course content

A set of core modules form the bedrock of the programme, introducing you to the concept of the ‘museum’ and the ways in which Western museums have represented and interpreted history and historical material.

You’ll also use contemporary theory to consider 20th-century museum practice and key questions around curatorship, museology and museum management. The role of the curator, funding and sponsorship and the display and interpretation of objects are among the topics you’ll cover.

Your core modules will give you the chance to apply your theoretical knowledge and gain practical skills. You’ll take part in an interpretation project in the University’s Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, as well as completing a work placement in an external arts or heritage organisation.

All MA students in the School take two core modules which develop the research skills to complete research projects such as your essays and dissertation.

This will build to our unique MA Symposium in Semester 2, where you present some of your own research across interdisciplinary panels, and a dissertation which enables you to undertake research in a topic of interest to you.

If you choose to study part-time, you’ll study over a longer period and take fewer modules in each year.

Course structure

Compulsory modules

• Advanced Research Skills 1 5 credits
• Advanced Research Skills 2 5 credits
• History and the Museum: Representation, Narrative and Memory 30 credits
• Museum, Object, Practice 30 credits
• Interpreting Cultures 30 credits
• Dissertation for the MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies 50 credits

Optional modules

• Derrida and Deconstruction 30 credits
• Beyond the Trench: Collaborative Projects on the History, Remembrance and Critical Heritage of the First World War 30 credits
• Capitalism-Criticism-Contemporary Art 30 credits
• Unfinished Business: Trauma, Cultural Memory and the Holocaust 30 credits
• From Chagall to Kitaj and Beyond 30 credits
• Critical and Curatorial Challenges in Contemporary Art: The Documenta Exhibitions at Kassel 1992-2012 30 credits
• Encountering Things: Art and Entanglement in Anglo-Saxon England 30 credits
• Anthropology, Art and Representation 30 credits
• Humanity, Animality and Globality 30 credits
• Audience Engagement and Impact 30 credits

For more information on typical modules, read Art Gallery and Museum Studies MA Full Time in the course catalogue

For more information on typical modules, read Art Gallery and Museum Studies MA Part Time in the course catalogue

Learning and teaching

You’ll be taught by leading researchers and experienced practitioners in their fields, and you’ll benefit from a range of teaching and learning methods. They include lectures and seminars, gallery and museum visits, as well as hands-on experience of specific collections in library sessions.

You’ll also learn from practical experience when you undertake your work placement, and a variety of external speakers will give you an insight into contemporary practice in the sector. Independent study is an important element of the degree, allowing you to develop your research and critical skills.

Assessment

We use a range of assessment methods including essays, presentations, assignments and literature reviews among others, depending on the modules you choose.

Career opportunities

Through a combination of theory and practice, the programme produces graduates who are able to develop professional careers in the museums and heritage sector whilst retaining a critical and reflexive eye on their own practice and that of the institutions in which they work.

It will equip you with a good understanding of the issues and approaches to art gallery and museum studies, as well as practical work experience – a combination which is very valuable to employers. You’ll also develop advanced skills in communication, research and analysis as well as cultural awareness.

Our graduates now work as heads of collection, curators and education staff in local authority museums, for national heritage organisations like the National Trust, charitable trusts and in arts marketing and public relations.

A significant number have also returned as research students and have secured scholarships to pursue their research topics, including Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) scholarships. Former research students are now forging academic careers in the UK, Canada and the US.

To get a flavour of the kinds of career trajectories our graduates have taken see the ‘news’ section of the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage and the alumni pages of the School website.

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MA Fashion Art Direction will provide the opportunity for practice-based postgraduate study in the creation of innovative visual communication and imagery for fashion end use. Outcomes could be related to print and pattern design, promotion, marketing, branding, visual merchandising, art direction, illustration, publishing or pursuing further postgraduate study.

You will be encouraged to engage with contemporary fashion audiences through the creation of work that explores original approaches to product, concept and/or communication. Your work should demonstrate a keen sense of contextual awareness, knowing where the work fits in the world and how the world might affect it. The programme will emphasise the importance of being digitally articulate and you will be able to combine this with traditional media and design processes should you choose to. Collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches will be encouraged, as will engagement with the creative industries beyond the School of Art.

Design Network

Based in the heart of the School of Art, MA/MFA Design: Fashion Art Direction is part of an innovative design network — a community of staff and students exploring design ideas in a discursive, cross-disciplinary studio environment. Critically informed practical designers, the group works experimentally, inspired by new insights and possibilities.

While studying towards a particular qualification at MA/MFA level, students experience their subject in the broader context of contemporary design practice.

Specialist Environment

Dedicated spaces for the postgraduate community have been developed to enable the postgraduate community to flourish. These spaces, for thinking and practice, are located centrally within the School of Art, allowing easy access to an extensive range of workshops where the combination of traditional and state of the art equipment opens up a world of exciting possibilities.

Course Content

The MA Design: Fashion Art Direction is made up of four units totalling 180 credits.

The programme is designed to help you acclimatise to the challenges of MA level research and practice, enabling you to identify and describe a clear direction for your postgraduate design study.

You will be encouraged to develop design propositions that encompass key design issues and have complexity and ambition, taking full consideration of the relative contextual drivers.

You will also be encouraged and supported to extend your experience in the professional sphere either through a practical project, research context, exchange, work experience, or other negotiated professional set of interactions with an external partner, groups of students and creative industry.

Towards the end of the programme you will undertake a major project to consolidate your past research and practice into fully realised collections, pieces, proposals, business plans, or exhibitions – whatever means is appropriate to the work. You will also have developed a strategy for the continuation of your practice located and contextualised to the profession or discipline.

If you choose to progress to MFA Design: Fashion Art Direction award you will study a further two units of 60 credits each.

This route is focused on the continuation of your practice aligned to the research and selection of appropriate public or professional venues and platforms to disseminate a significant body of work. You will be required to produce work for a public audience in the most relevant and appropriate form along with any implicit publicity and dissemination material.

Resources

We have developed a dedicated postgraduate area occupying an entire floor of the main School of Art building, offering an exciting space to be, both intellectually and practically. The centre is located in the newly refurbished Chatham Tower with studios, design laboratories, seminar rooms and extensive workshops that form the nucleus of this vibrant, cross-disciplinary learning environment.

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The M.Phil. in Irish Art History provides an exciting programme exploring a range of key aspects of the history and analysis of Irish visual expression from pre-Christian to Contemporary art and architecture. The course is designed both for graduates of art history and for those from other, cognate, disciplines. While focused on art and artists in or from Ireland, the imagery, objects and structures are all explored within international and interdisciplinary contexts, as the course is intended to provide graduates with a range of transferable analytical and practical skills that can be applied within other cultural environments. A particular advantage of this course is the accessibility of a wide range of relevant art objects and structures in, and in the vicinity of, Trinity College as well as extensive library and archival resources. Since its establishment ten years ago, the course has attracted applications from all over the world. Many graduates have continued on to undertake Ph.D. research in Trinity and in other universities internationally, while others have taken up posts in museums, galleries, and auction houses as well as in cultural media.

The course offers general introductions to Irish art and architecture as well as a more specialized focus on selected periods and themes. It provides students with a critical understanding of the analysis of works of art within their cultural contexts, and an appreciation of the range of works created in Ireland over time. A core dimension of the course will involve exploring the concept of 'Irishness'. Through engagement with museums and galleries in Ireland, students will also have an understanding of a key curatorial issues of relevance in the development of exhibitions and collections, including the technical opportunities which the digital age offers to curators and art historians. In addition to taking compulsory core modules, students choose a number of electives, which allow them to build specific skills and to follow their individual interests. Students are assessed on the completion of a range of coursework assignments, including essays, critiques, and research exercises. The capstone of the course is a dissertation of 15,000-20,000 words on a topic selected by the student, and carried out under the supervision of a member of staff in the Department of History of Art and Architecture or the Irish Art Research Centre (TRIARC).

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About the course

The Doctorate in Fine Art (DFA) is aimed at practicing artists and art educators working in various Art & Design disciplines, including but not limited to:

- Painting
- Photography, film and video art
- Performance art
- Sculpture
- Applied arts
- Digital media art

The DFA is a structured doctorate that can be undertaken part-time using a combination of online and on-campus research activities and supervision. This allows candidates to study in their home countries and to attend at the University only once per year. Candidates can also choose to attend for blocks of full-time study at the University, thereby shortening the overall duration of their studies, and playing an active role in the university’s research community.

The course philosophy is that practice and research cannot be separated. Candidates will be expected to continue with their art practice and to bring this to bear upon the research questions in the professional doctorate. The research output will include a written thesis alongside an exhibited body of art practice.

The programme offers expert supervision for your personal projects, and leads to high level innovative practice and a sound understanding of the artist as researcher. Students will have access to fully equipped workshops and technical support, and will have opportunities to engage with established research communities while they are on campus.

Frequently Asked Questions - http://www.herts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/11898/ProfDocFAQs-2015.pdf

Why choose this course?

- Outcomes include both written thesis and artworks.
- Part-time doctorate that can be undertaken by candidates based overseas via a virtual research environment, with attendance on campus once a year.
- Directly addresses the international debate concerning the nature of research in creative areas.
- Equips candidates with a range of conceptual and practical skills.
- Structured assignments providing a thorough grounding in practice-led research and the relationship between academic and professional values individual supervised research in the candidate’s own area of professional expertise.
- Individual supervised research in the candidate’s own area of professional expertise.
- Leads to an internationally recognised UK doctorate in Fine Art.

Careers

After successfully completing the doctorate the candidate will have the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue research and to contribute to the development of commercial, institutional and national structures for research in creative areas in their home countries. Research in the Creative Arts is an emerging area and we expect graduates from our programme will take leading roles in its international development.

Teaching methods

The course begins with a series of online study and research skills, which provide a thorough grounding in the philosophical and theoretical issues surrounding notions of so-called practice-based research and the relationship between academic and professional values. At the end of Year 1 when this Phase has been successfully completed, the candidate then undertakes an individual supervised research project in his or her own professional discipline. During this second Phase there are online study materials and structured learning experiences that guide the candidate towards the presentation of a comprehensive outline of the doctoral research. Once the second Phase has been successfully completed (normally during Year 3), the candidate focuses on the production of a written thesis and accompanying artefacts that communicate the content of the research project. Throughout the whole programme we expect both practice and theoretical research to be completely integrated.

Work Placement

This course does not offer work placement. The concept of the professional doctorate (in contrast to the PhD) is that students are already professionally engaged in the workplace, and use this experience as the basis of their doctoral study. Research questions that are grounded in the workplace form the focus of the inquiry, and solutions are implemented through the workplace.

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MRes programmes

You can enter these programmes either with an undergraduate degree in Social Anthropology, or with no previous anthropological experience but the desire to convert your academic focus into anthropology. The MRes aims to provide a firm foundation in the methods and methodologies of social anthropology and the human sciences, to serve as a basis for knowledgeable and skilled research in Social Anthropology. You are taught in dedicated postgraduate classes throughout.
• These programmes foster a critical outlook and the creative application of knowledge and skills.
• Teaching is carried out by means of lectures to subject specific and generic courses, complemented by seminars, supervisions and reading groups.
• You are expected to take an active part in classes, which provide the opportunity for practical work and formative assessment.
• The benefits of studying here are the close links between the research interests and teaching in the Department and the close integration to research centres: Centre for Amerindian & Caribbean Studies, Centre for Pacific Studies and the Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies.

MRes in Anthropology, Art and Perception

• Masters training for postgraduate research into Anthropology of Art, Material Culture and Visual Expression.
• Explore new ways of thinking anthropologically providing you with important, cutting-edge research tools for future research.
• Take perception and the senses as a starting point and draw on themes which extend across the subject boundaries between art and anthropology.
• Themes include:
– apprenticeship and practice-based research.
– the role of community and co-operation in both making and use.
– observation through drawing, photography, sound and film.
– heritage.
– the role of anthropology in design and contemporary art.
– commonalities between anthropological field work and contemporary arts practice.

Postgraduate community

Many students are from abroad and are undertaking a varied range of taught courses and research programmes. Those returning from, or preparing to go into, the field form an active community with a wide range of diverse geographical and substantive interests.

You will participate in annual workshops organised by the Department, jointly with the Anthropology departments of the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow under the Scottish Training in Anthropological Research (STAR) programme. These workshops provide opportunities for informal presentations of research proposals, discussions relevant to your fieldwork preparations (e.g. ethics, data collection, writing field notes). The exploration of creative ways of learning is held in a relaxed yet focused environment, together with members of staff and PhD students from each of the universities. The training workshops last for
four days and take place in a beautiful countryside location. They act as complementary elements of the postgraduate training programme, and are organised in consultation with postgraduate students themselves, according to their perceived needs and wishes. In addition, there are shorter workshops which take place throughout the year and are designed to develop theoretical perspectives in anthropological research.

Facilities

The Department of Social Anthropology occupies an extensive suite of offices on North Street and in St Salvator’s Quad. It is well situated in the centre of town and at the geographical heart of the University. The Centre for Amerindian Studies has its own set of rooms within the Department, including a reading room that holds a library for Latin American and Amerindian studies. Within Social Anthropology there is also a museum collection of ethnographic objects, and a common room that includes a general anthropological class library, providing a space that is shared by both staff and postgraduates. The Departmental libraries, along with the main library, which holds a fine anthropology collection, include materials from all ethnographic regions of the world.

Weekly research seminars are organised by both the Department and sometimes by the Centres, and include speakers from outside St Andrews and abroad, thus enriching the intellectual environment. Social anthropologists from other UK departments, and beyond, visit and contribute to our series of seminars, and to workshops and conferences arranged by staff members and by research students. We endeavour to create a warm and friendly atmosphere and this also contributes towards maintaining a high quality of teaching and intellectual exchange.

Teaching methods

Taught postgraduate programmes in Social Anthropology are small class format modules, in which formal lectures are combined with seminar style teaching and student-led group work. Every taught postgraduate student is assigned an individual supervisor from among the anthropology staff, who works with them closely to develop a topic and direction for the end of degree dissertation.

International conferences

An important element in fostering the Department’s reputation has been a series of international conferences, each of which has considered an important contemporary theoretical issue within the discipline. These have dealt with, for example, the Anthropology of Violence; Power and Knowledge; Localising Strategies; the Concept of the Market; the Problem of Context; Kingship; the Anthropology of Love and Anger; Ways of Knowing; an Epistemology of Anthropology. The Ladislav Holy Memorial Trust plays an important supportive role for many of these conferences. From time to time distinguished scholars are appointed to the St Andrews Visiting Professorship in Social Anthropology, and each year members of the international academic community join the Department to follow postdoctoral work and other research endeavours. Such visiting scholars greatly enhance the thriving research environment.

Careers

Social Anthropology graduates have characteristics many employers seek and a Social Anthropology degree provides openings to a wide range of careers.
• Private organisations: can use the skills of social anthropologists doing research for urban planning, working with health organisations, doing market research for advertising companies, training employees who will be working in international divisions, or working within human resource departments.

• Government agencies: can employ social anthropologists as policy researchers, research analysts, evaluators, managers, planners and policy makers.

• International organisations: can employ anthropologists in projects in various countries around the world as researchers and cultural brokers.

• Non-profit agencies: can employ social anthropologists as advocates, administrators, evaluators and researchers.

• Graduate employers: 70% of graduate jobs are for students from any discipline. Social anthropologists successfully move into teaching, law, finance, HR, marketing, PR etc.

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On this course you will experience a broad range of skills and techniques relating to a range of different areas within the animation and digital effects industries before choosing a specific area to specialise in. You then develop your skills and knowledge in that chosen area to become a multi-talented animation and digital effects artist.

You are supported in the production of creatively driven work to a professional standard and encouraged to challenge boundaries and think in original ways. You develop intellectual and critical approaches to creative tasks and production processes in animation and digital effects. The course provides an environment where you are enabled to work flexibly and independently within the diverse media industries.

We have up-to-date industry standard animation and digital compositing software and facilities allowing you to build your professional skill set throughout the course. You develop practical and conceptual skills in animation production through real world scenarios. You make and complete animations and digital effects to a high professional standard and develop a portfolio of work that showcases your skills to future employers.

Course structure

Postgraduate certificate modules

• 3D fundamentals
• Acquisition and digital effects 1
• Observational drawing
• Character animation

Postgraduate diploma CORE modules

• Advanced animation techniques
• Acquisition and digital effects 2
• Communicating research

Postgraduate diploma OPTION modules

• Concept art
• Asset creation

Masters modules

• Masters animation project

Assessment

• Coursework
• Dissertation

Employability

Careers exist in filmmaking professions, where everything from set designing to cinematography now involves or is entirely completed by computer-generated images, animation and digital compositing – all techniques you can develop on this course.

Continuing expansion of this area offers exciting and challenging career opportunities in • film and television production • game development • motion graphics • web content creation.

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Summary

This programme represents an innovative approach to games design, which brings the latest technologies and techniques together. You will learn to create valuable graphic art assets and narratives, developing a keen understanding of games design in the professional world and learning how to develop your own games with a variety of tools and programming skills. You can become a member of our Games Design Hub, bringing you valuable research opportunities and professional contacts and enabling you to consider commercialising your final projects. The MA will help you develop, innovate and create artefacts within an environment that values exploration along side tutors with top industry experience. It will provide you with the key skills you need to succeed in games development as a programmer, narrative developer, concept artist or games animator.

Modules

Core modules: Research Skills, Design (Studio), Design (Global Media Management) and Final Project.

Optional Modules: Visual Culture, Entrepreneurship, Responsible Design, Digital Marketing Communications, Global Marketing, Digital Cultures, Display: Interpreting the Language of Design.

Visit our website for further information.

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Course Overview

It aims to produce successful individuals who can:
- Understand the whole of the professional design development process and how the initial phases flow to inform the latter stages.

- Appreciate commercial realities and the designer’s role in business.

- Design desirable products for bespoke, batch or mass manufacture.

- Understand sustainability, inclusively, and other important ethical and social issues that must be considered by today’s designers.

- Have traditional design skills such as sketching, dealing with form, communication and innovation.

- Are able to use design tools such as 3D CAD, CAM and rapid prototyping in order to optimise the design and reduce time to market.

The Cardiff School of Art & Design have substantial expertise in the delivery of courses at the interface of engineering and product design whilst the National Centre for Product Design & Development Research is one of the UK’s leading centres for rapid product design & development whose expertise covers the whole process from design management, concept and detailed design, ergonomics and CAD to prototyping, tooling and batch manufacture.

See the website https://www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/artanddesign/courses/Pages/mscapd.aspx

Course Content

MSc students take the following modules:
- APD401M Product Development Principles & Practice (20 Credits)
- APD403M Sustainability Issues in Design for Production (20 Credits)
- MAA7001 Research Methods in Art & Design (20 Credits)
- APD405M User Testing & Evaluation (20 Credits)
- APD406M Form Shape & Colour (20 Credits)
- APD407M Major Project (60 Credits)
- APD408M(A) Industrial Placement (20 Credits)

Each 20 credits is equivalent to 240 learning hours (80 typically are taught and 160 are directed study or independent study).

- Facilities
Dedicated studio space. Cardiff School of Art and Design offers an extensive range of spaces, workshops and equipment, creating a vibrant and creative learning environment, within a new purpose designed building and a fully renovated extension. Workshop and technical facilities include a foundry; and access to other workshops across the full range of Art and Design disciplines. Membership of the Fablab is included in the indicative coursework costs below. Cardiff School of Art and Design has a wide range of tools and equipment for use by students; necessary workshop training in their use includes access to materials used as part of timetabled workshop inductions. You also have access to and use of recycled materials within workshop areas.

Assessment

For each module, assessment is as follows:
- APD401M Product Development Principles & Practice (20 Credits) 6000 word equivalent assignment. This will normally be a written assignment.

- APD403M Sustainability Issues in Design for Production (20 Credits) 6000 word equivalent. This module will typically be assessed via a design project. A proportion of the assignment may however be awarded for written or presentatio​n work.

- MAA7001 Research Methods in Art & Design (20 Credits) Written submission, plus seminar presentation, typically 3,000 words plus a 10-20 minute presentation.

- APD405M User Testing & Evaluation (20 Credits) 6000 word equivalent. This module may be linked with others in order to provide a design project vehicle. In any case it will involve practical exercises and a proportion if not all of the assignment may be awarded for written or presentation work.

- APD406M Form Shape & Colour (20 Credits) 6000 word equivalent. This project is likely to be assessed through practical design activity, although a proportion of the assignment may be awarded for written or presentation work.

- APD407M Major Project (60 Credits). 18,000-word equivalent. Performance will be measured using the Final Report, Formal Presentation, Viva Voce examination and final product. Of the marks that are available for the project the allocation of the marks to each of the measures is as follows:

Final Report: 40%

Final Product (prototype): 40%

Formal Presentation: 5%

Viva Voce: 15%

- APD408M(A) Industrial Placement (20 Credits) 6000 word equivalent. A 3000 word ( maximum) report reflecting on the student’s experience within the professional working environment. A reflective placement Logbook (or Blog equivalent) recording critical reflections on events, activities and experiences. Important Note: Because of the difficulties of assessment in the workplace and the potential for disparity of treatment, this module is not awarded a mark other than “Pass” or “Fail”.

Support will be available through weekly small group seminars (normally no more than 16 students per group), exploring the theme of lectures and allowing students to clarify their understanding.

These sessions may also be workshops where practical demonstrations, involving student participation, are run. This may include, for example, communal writing or small group discourse analysis. Weekly tutorials will also be available.

Employability & Careers

Your year(s) of study with us enable you to develop professional contacts, observe how successful practitioners make their living, and hone your skills and ideas for commercial and professional advantage. Such cross-disciplinary collaborations prepare you for a world where you will inevitably work with people from all walks of life. Your live projects and assessments will get you accustomed to the importance of deadlines and working to specific briefs and tight specifications.

Over the next few years, CSAD will be developing opportunities for incubation of business proposals from its graduates and postgraduate training to get business opportunities up and running.

All students’ are expected to complete a portable ‘record of achievement’ and use their PDP to support employability and life-long learning, normally in the form of a blog, that integrates opportunities for self-reflection in programmes in order to help them develop as effective and confident learners.

Find information on Scholarships here https://www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/scholarships

Find out how to apply here https://www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/howtoapply

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