University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Swansea College of Art Masters Degrees

Swansea College of Art at UWTSD, founded in 1853 and has an established and vibrant postgraduate culture that embraces a dynamic MA/MSc taught master’s portfolio and offers supervision for MPhil/PhD research programmes and post-doctoral research of the highest standard.

The 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) categorised 95.8% of our research as being of world renown or recognised as internationally excellent.

The College’s Creative Industries Research and Innovation Centre (CIRIC) acts as a catalyst for developing and maintaining our strong international partnerships and industry links. CIRIC is an innovative, entrepreneurial and commercial centre that fosters knowledge transfer between the University and the private sector.

Research and Expertise

Our Taught Master’s Portfolio benefits from these strong research and industry links and promotes creative enquiry through practice and the interrogation of theoretical ideas, establishing a journey of discovery into the world of Art, Design and Media and onward to many different work destinations. Our aim is to facilitate choice; to develop personal inquiry and exploration beyond medium specificity, through a lively postgraduate programme comprising of seminars, research forums, visiting lecturers, artists’ talks, symposia and exhibitions.

The research environment benefits greatly from the input of our teaching staff and visiting lecturers, most of whom are research-active artists, designers, and theoreticians of national and international standing. Expertise is wide-ranging, from fine art, photography, film and video, animation and interactive media, to textiles, visual communications, art historical studies, ceramics, product design, automotive design and glass. We hold regular public symposia and research forums throughout the year, inviting speakers of international renown. The research and practice of all staff in the College enriches our post-graduate programmes and ensures their currency. Staff are invited to exhibit at prestigious international events and venues such as the Venice Biennale and the Three Gorges Museum in China.

The College of Art has four integrated research hubs covering Contemporary Fine Arts, Contemporary Crafts, Life-Science and Health and the Digital Creative Industries. These hubs cover a wide and growing number of specific research centres such as CLASI (The Centre for Lens Arts and Science Interaction), CIC (Cerebra Innovation Centre), ISD (Institute for Sustainable Design), IPCRES (The International Project Centre for Research into Events and Situations) and ATIC (Assistive Technologies Innovation Centre). For more information about our areas of research please visit: www.uwtsd.ac.uk/research/art-and-design

Facilities

Our postgraduate students benefit from our wide range of technical facilities, from the traditional to the multimodal digital. We have made a conscious decision to retain technologies such as chemical darkrooms, firing kilns for glass and ceramics and an impressive line-up of printing presses. Alongside these we have the most up-to-date digital computing suites, video editing and a fully equipped TV studio, as well as laser and water-jet cutters, digital print, 3D printers and textile printers. Our studio facilities are excellent and we have developed a range of studio settings tailored to the needs of our students, many of whom take advantage of our location in the heart of Swansea’s Arts Quarter and are located alongside practicing artists’ studios across the city.

The combination of location, cutting edge facilities and an internationally recognised research profile makes Swansea College of Art at UWTSD the ideal place to base your post-graduate studies.