Masters Degrees in Ceramics Design, United Kingdom

MA/MFA Design: Ceramics is concerned with the development of advanced craft and design practice. The course provides a complex and diverse territory for MA study. It is grounded in ceramics practice - the rich history of people and objects, social and political narrative – yet encourages students to question the roles and rituals of ceramics practice in today’s society.

There is opportunity for the exploration of both hands-on and digital innovation in the development of design, making and drawing practices. We encourage the pursuit of expertise and value through careful practical insights and personal intuition.

There is access to an extensive range of ceramics workshops and to a broad range of other material and print workshops as well as CAD/CAM workshops.

We have an interdisciplinary approach to designing and making with regular support and contact from specialist staff in ceramics. Collaboration with peers and engagement with external partners will be encouraged and supported.

Design Network

Based in the heart of the School of Art, MA/MFA Design: Ceramics 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: Ceramics 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: Ceramics award you will study a further two units of 60 credits each.

This award 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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Rooted in material investigation, this course allows exploration of ceramics through art, craft and design contexts. You’ll develop skills and knowledge through an exciting combination of material investigation and research. This will allow you to contextualise your practice in relation to current debates in art, craft and design and to develop an individual production strategy.

COURSE STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

You’ll receive specialised ceramics tuition from a dedicated team of academic and technical staff within the ceramics area, as well as from regular part-time lecturers and visiting practitioner/artists.You’ll be part of a lively ceramics community, based around comprehensive workshop provision and studio spaces. As postgraduate students, you’ll have the opportunity to extend and hone making skills in conjunction with developing your understanding of how a ceramics specialisation might relate to production in art, craft or design contexts.

MODULE STRUCTURE

In the first trimester, you’ll establish the direction of your creative practice through studio and workshop-based making. Research Methodologies will provide you with a strong sense of methodical purpose when thinking through and about your practise.

In the second trimester, you’ll negotiate a proposal for self-directed study. You’ll deepen your knowledge and understanding of debates in ceramics, situating the personal interests and concerns that inform your work within an appropriate contemporary context.

The final trimester comprises an individually negotiated and self-initiated body of work building on the knowledge and skills already acquired. You'll be supervised by tutorial through to completion.

For detailed information on modules and course structure go to: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/courses/pg-design-ceramics/

DISTANCE LEARNING ROUTE

Students may choose to take some or all of the modules on this course by distance learning. Teaching and tutorial support will be delivered via a combination of computer-based learning and campus visits, with assessment matched to your particular interests and needs.

TEACHING METHODS

You’ll receive specialised ceramics tuition from a dedicated team of academic and technical staff within the ceramics area, as well as from regular part-time lecturers and visiting practitioner/artists. Peer interaction across the school, along with the group dynamic within the course, is seen as critical to your learning experience. Lectures, seminars, group critiques and trips will also be central to your learning experience.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Practice modules are assessed through studio exhibition of work with a supporting statement; theory modules through written assignment and verbal presentation. The final Masters Project is assessed through exhibition and Evaluative Report. There are no written examinations.

For more information on teaching and assessment, please go to our course webpage: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/courses/pg-design-ceramics/

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Typical career destinations include:
• Exhibiting
• Ceramic design and museum work
• Arts administration
• Public art
• Research
• Teaching

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Course Overview

The MA Ceramics Programme’s aim is to enable each student to identify their true interests and concerns as artists, designers or makers and to develop appropriate methods to explore their ideas and articulate or express them effectively in imaginative or innovative ways, through the medium of ceramics.

It also engages students with the key theories and contemporary debates, thus fostering their understandings of the ways in which these influence the development, expression and communication of their ideas, which will impact upon the success of their future practice as artists, makers or academics

Ceramics is a medium in which the practitioner occupies very different positions and frequently has opposing priorities and values drawn from previous personal experiences, technical competence and tacit knowledge.

The MA Ceramics programme is for individuals seeking to extend and develop their practice as well as deepen their knowledge and understandings of the subject, as future practitioners, researchers or academics.

The MA programme allows each student to:
- Develop their authorship of advanced studio work
- Be analytically rigorous
- Develop a greater capacity for reflection

Students are encouraged to challenge norms and question conventions through fusing materiality and concept. This approach is underpinned by a critical and historical approach discourse – a critical language for both fine and applied art and design.

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

Course Content

The MA programme is offered as One Year Full Time, or Two Years Part Time.

Students undertake a sequentially designed course to lead seamlessly from one module to the next and finally into the Major study (equivalent to Dissertation of a more theory based MA). There are no options or electives or alternatives to the scheme. The development of these skills have been embedded into specific modules.

The following Modules will be undertaken by MA Ceramics students:
- MAA7001 Research Methods (20 Credits)
- MAC7004 Studio Project 1 (40 Credits)
- MAC 7006 Studio Project 2 (40 Credits)
- MAC7008 Dissertation (20 Credits)
- MAC7007 Major Project (60 Credits)

Exit points/Awards
- On completing 120 credits in total students will be awarded a Postgraduate Diploma.
- On completing 180 credits in total students will be awarded a Master’s Degree (MA Ceramics).

Learning & Teaching

The MA is taught through lecture and seminar with individualised supervisory meetings to develop a learning contract (part of the early Personal Development Planning process [PDP]) and an individualised programme of learning and individualised supervision towards a creative research outcome, defined and monitored by developing PDP.

Our approach to learning and teaching is based on negotiation and dialogue, encouraging students to develop their own, self-directed project to a professional standard within a rigorous yet supportive academic environment. To support this, each student is allocated a Personal Tutor and an additional subject-specialist member of staff (academic tutor) from within the design expertise in a respective design department.

Together, they form the Supervisory Team. The CSAD web application form includes a personal statement, and an outline of the professional or research project that the student wishes to pursue at Masters level. This informs the allocation of personal tutor and subject-specialist member of academic staff (academic tutor) with whom the learning contract is established, which in turn forms the basis for the student’s personal plan, reflected on in the continuing PDP process.

There are opportunities for all MA students to come together in common teaching and presentations, to engage in peer learning groups and peer review of work, and to reflect on the outcomes of these peer reviews in PDP. At several key stages in the MA programme we stress the importance of self-directed and negotiated learning. This is in part a response to what we perceive to be a growing demand for programmes of study that allow students to integrate work, study, career, personal aspirations and other commitments.

All course documentation, including Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Research Studies Manual, CSAD’s Research Study Guide, the MA Ceramics Handbook with module descriptors, assessment guidelines and criteria, will be available as hard copy and electronically. In addition, lecture PowerPoint presentations and workshop-generated material, for example, paragraphs and textual or visual analyses composed during workshops, will be available on the Cardiff Metropolitan University Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Remote or electronic contact with staff will be available by email and/or VLE. The supervisory team will deliver, manage and monitor each student's progress through a number of individual and team meetings. Students will also be encouraged to form and maintain peer-learning groups, either face-to-face or online. Learning will be supported through the use of the VLE, electronic communications, and other relevant methods. Any students requiring learning support are advised to contact Learning Support in Student Services. Throughout the programme, students are expected to maintain their own Personal Development Plan/Portfolio (PDP), intended to provide evidence of their knowledge and understanding in relation to the learning outcomes of each module.

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

Assessment

For each module, assessment is in the form of:
- MAA7001 Research Methods (20credits) Written 3000 word paper
- MAC7004 Studio Project1. (40 credits) Constructing a Discourse’ Presentation of Practical Work Power Point Presentation with 1,000-1500 word transcript
- MAC 7006 Studio Project 2. (40 credits)Presentation of Practical Work Power Point Presentation, with 1,000-1500 word transcript Viva Voce.
- MAC7008 (20 credits) ‘Developing a Theoretical Context for Student’s Studio-Based Practice’. Written 5000 word paper
- MAC7007 Major Project. (60 credits) Presentation of Practical Work Power Point Presentation with 1,000-1500 word transcript Viva Voce.

Support will be available through weekly individual tutorials, group seminars, workshops where practical demonstrations, involving student participation. This may include, for example (Theory), communal writing (via computer and data projector) or group discourse analysis.

Students are encouraged to instigate discussion within and outside of the formal delivery Programme Face book pages and blogs further contribute and facilitate this shared learning experience.

Employability & Careers

The MA Ceramics programme enables students to enhance their careers as, or to become, established artist, designers, makers leading towards a career, or towards a PhD or to a Professional Doctorate in either art or design. Cardiff School of Art and Design offers Professional Doctoral programs in both Art and Design.

The MA Ceramics programme is designed to enable students to achieve the attributes of greater flexibility, adaptability, and individual responsibility and autonomy as professional artists, makers and designers or researchers. It is Internationally recognised that the MA Ceramics programme develops individuality , creativity, self-reliance, initiative, and the ability to perform in rapidly changing environments as well as increasing competence with research skills and methods which will make graduates highly employable as academics and or researchers or enable them to develop an active and sustained practice as artists makers or designers.

The MA Ceramics programme particularly characteristic is that it enable graduates, mid- career and professional practitioners from within and outside of the discipline of Ceramics to negotiate and examine strategies of Practice through the medium of Ceramics and yet being able to create their own hybrids of material based practice that can further enhance the territory that Ceramics can occupy.

All students receive individual Semester based PDP tutorials to support employability and life-long learning. Learning Journal blogs, and continuous visual documentation /text that integrates opportunities for self-reflection in programmes in order to help them develop as effective and confident learners are expected to be maintained throughout the programme of study.

At the conclusion of the programme, a very high percentage of MA graduates establish or continue their professional practice, enabled by the links they have made with galleries or organisations associated with the visual arts. Some elect to continue with ceramics at CSAD by undertaking a PhD.

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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Introduction

This course focuses your practice on an industry sector and broadens your career and research horizons. Your chosen project becomes a vehicle for developing your creative abilities and analytical skills, and for locating your work in the professional world.

Content

MA Design: Ceramics, Furniture or Jewellery is part of the Product, Ceramic and Industrial Design programme. Ceramics, furniture and jewellery design share rich cultural histories and traditions of practice. Each is concerned with what can be described as 'intimate architecture' - a physical relationship of the artefact with the body.

The role of design practitioners is changing as a result of emergent technologies, global marketing, the internationalisation of production, and a rising interest in a 'bespoke approach' or 'craft content' within design.

Designers need to be able to think creatively and strategically about the identity of products and their cultural backgrounds and to support their ideas with innovation, commercial thinking and ethical questioning. MA Design: Ceramics, Furniture or Jewellery (by Project) develops your creative abilities, imagination and expertise in relation to real design world demands by linking formal design approaches with practice-led research.

The postgraduate course is achieved in the context of your own personal project, explored and developed according to your individual pathway choice, in a stimulating, supportive, creative and collaborative environment.

Structure

MA Design: Ceramics, Furniture or Jewellery lasts 60 weeks structured as two consecutive periods of 30 weeks each (i.e. two academic years) in its 'extended full-time mode'.

MA Design: Ceramics, Furniture or Jewellery is credit rated at 180 credits, and comprises 2 units. Unit 1 (60 credits) lasts 20 weeks. Unit 2 (120 credits) runs for 10 weeks in the first year and 30 weeks in the second year.

Both units must be passed in order to achieve the MA, but the classification of the award of MA derives from your mark for Unit 2 only.

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The University of Sunderland has the largest glass and ceramics department in Europe.

Course overview

This programme is for individuals who wish to develop both their practice and critical understanding with regards to glass and ceramics. The subject is explored and contextualized in its widest sense through both practical and theoretical investigation and application.

We do not have a ‘house style’, instead you will be encouraged and supported to develop your own focus, independent creativity, improve your technical skills through expert support, and develop academic skills in research and communication.

You’ll be joining the largest glass and ceramics department in Europe, made up of an international team of creative and experienced educators and practitioners. All academic staff on this course are engaged in professional practice or research and are at the forefront of their discipline.

Sunderland is a thriving research hub and hosts the Ceramics Arts Research Centre (CARCuos), which aims to develop, support and disseminate new knowledge and scholarly activity whilst also providing a platform both practically and theoretically for discussion aligned to the ceramic arts.

Graduates from Sunderland have gone on to work throughout the creative industries. MA graduates have also wished to extend their work through a research degree either at MPhil or PhD level and continue studies within CARCuos the ceramic arts research centre at the University.

This course can also be taken part time - for more information, please view this web-page: http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/courses/artsdesignandmedia/postgraduate/ceramics-part-time/

Course content

The content of the course is shaped by your personal interests with guidance and inspiration from Sunderland's supportive tutors.

Modules on this course include:
Stage 1 (60 Credits)
-Contextual Studies: Critical and Professional Contexts in Contemporary Art and Design (30 credits)
-Experimentation in Glass and Ceramics (30 credits)

Stage 2 (60 Credits)
-Contextual Studies: Professional Practice in Glass and Ceramics (30 credits)
-Developing Practice in Glass and Ceramics (30 credits)

Stage 3 (60 Credits)
-Contextual Studies: Research Project in Glass and Ceramics (30 credits)
-Synthesis in Glass and Ceramics Practice (30 credits)

Teaching and assessment

Compared to an undergraduate course, you will find that this Masters requires a higher level of independent working. The course aims to stretch your creativity and maximise your sense of personal fulfilment.

We use a wide variety of teaching and learning methods which include lectures, seminars, critiques, workshops and practical demonstrations. These are supported by a range of guest speakers from diverse academic and industry backgrounds. You will also have high levels of contact with tutors who give regular feedback and support.

Facilities & location

Facilities for this course include:
-26 glass kilns, including a large glass casting kiln
-13 ceramic kilns and two large gas kilns
-Ceramics mould-making and glaze workshops
-Hot glass workshop with international-quality equipment
-Two cold working studios (sandblasting, cutting, grinding and polishing)
-Printing facility for ceramics, glass and other surfaces
-Architectural glass studio
-Decal printer
-3D MakerBot Printer
-Water-jet machine/Computer Aided Design
-Project and exhibition space
-Multi-function creative and social space
-Lampworking and future light workshop
-Computer suite and project space
-Arts and Design Library
-Journals and research

We subscribe to a comprehensive range of print and electronic journals so you can access the most reliable and up-to-date articles. Some of the most important sources for your course are:
-Key Glass and Ceramics magazines and journals
-Art Full Text + Art Abstracts, which is a major resource for arts information
-Design and Applied Arts Index, which covers journals featuring both new designers and the development of design and the applied arts since the mid-19th century
-JSTOR (short for ‘Journal Storage’), which provides access to important journals across the humanities, social sciences and sciences

National Glass Centre
The Glass and Ceramics Department is based in National Glass Centre, a nationally recognised glass production and exhibition centre with a world-class programme of creative projects.

Studying here puts you at the heart of an international network of professionals in the ceramics sector. You will be exposed to the latest ways of working through visiting artists and designers, and you can become involved in exhibitions that help launch your career.

Employment & careers

Postgraduates are highly employable and, on average, earn more than individuals whose highest qualification is an undergraduate degree. On completing this course you will be equipped for roles throughout the creative industries.

Recent Sunderland graduates are now working as self-employed practitioners as well as being employed in arts administration and education.

During the course we encourage you to gain professional industry experience which will enhance your skills, build up a valuable network of contacts and boost your employability.

The University has close links with arts organisations including Arts Council England, the BALTIC, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tyne and Wear Museums Service and Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. We also have international links in USA, China and Czech Republic.

A Masters degree will also enhance career opportunities within Higher Education and prepare you for further postgraduate studies.

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MA Ceramic Design is recognised worldwide as one of the leading postgraduate programmes in ceramic design for small and mass manufacture. Taught in Stoke-on-Trent, the home of UK ceramics for over two centuries in the Potteries, this long-established course consistently produces career-ready graduates that are in demand by leading ceramic companies both in the UK and overseas. With world-famous ceramic manufacturers quite literally on the doorstep, Stoke-on-Trent provides a unique venue for the study of ceramic design.

This course provides a design-led creative experience of ceramics within a broad subject context. Designing through intelligent making allows you to access ideas through a unique material. The deep knowledge of one material helps you to appreciate the opportunities in ceramics but also its translation into other materials and professional opportunities. Whether your personal aspirations are embedded in 2D surface and pattern, and or 3D shape, form and function.

The relationship between the course and the global ceramic industry is mutually beneficial and is primarily responsible for the unique character and international reputation of the course. The strength of this award lies in the accumulated wealth of specialist knowledge and practical skills, which are the essential tools of the ceramics designer; and in the good working practices developed over many years. In the close working relationship with industry, and in the clarity of purpose that ensures academic coherence, and the credibility of the award.

Students are encouraged to pursue new and innovative ideas, redefining established ceramic craft and ceramic design market opportunities. These ideas may now be less wedded to the immediate perceived needs of the mass manufacturing industry and for the mass market. As a consequence encouraging students to take a wider perhaps more entrepreneurial, enterprising standpoint – working as designer-producers for example, engaging with small to medium sized factories in developing aspirational products of contemporary relevance with ‘added value’ aimed potentially at new and different niche markets.

The MA Ceramic Design course has in recent years provided the creative genesis for The New English ceramic design brand and the University’s unique Flux, blue and white fine bone china collection.

This course can be studied part time. For more information on part time study, see the website: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/course/SSTK-06801.jsp?utm_source=findamasters&utm_medium=courseprofile&utm_campaign=postgraduate

Course content

Semester 1
-Tools and Techniques
-Collaborative Project

Semester 2
-Ceramic Design, Professional Pathways
-Creativity & Innovation

Semester 3
The Masters Project

Graduate destinations

Many of our Ceramic Design graduates now work as designers or senior managers and creative directors within the ceramics and related creative industries. Some have set up in business as designer-producers or as freelance design consultants. And others have become retail developers, stylists, buyers, trend forecasters, lecturers and teachers.

Other admission requirements

For you to be able to execute your own ideas whilst on the course, You would be expected to demonstrate:
-Your ability to communicate your creative design ideas visually, this is critically important. Through traditional sketching and drawing (drawing with your own hand) and through digital techniques (the use of appropriate computer softwares).
-A broad understanding and experience of ceramic moulded techniques (the use of plaster moulds, typically slipcasting) or hand making techniques would be expected.
-Alternatively you may be interested in ceramic surface, ideas for surface pattern design whether this be for graphics; textiles or ceramics.
-Evidence that you have an awareness of the global marketplace for ceramic design, and as such develop innovative ceramic ideas informed by this knowledge.

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MA Ceramic Design is recognised worldwide as one of the leading postgraduate programmes in ceramic design for small and mass manufacture. Taught in Stoke-on-Trent, the home of UK ceramics for over two centuries in the Potteries, this long-established course consistently produces career-ready graduates that are in demand by leading ceramic companies both in the UK and overseas. With world-famous ceramic manufacturers quite literally on the doorstep, Stoke-on-Trent provides a unique venue for the study of ceramic design.

This course provides a design-led creative experience of ceramics within a broad subject context. Designing through intelligent making allows you to access ideas through a unique material. The deep knowledge of one material helps you to appreciate the opportunities in ceramics but also its translation into other materials and professional opportunities. Whether your personal aspirations are embedded in 2D surface and pattern, and or 3D shape, form and function.

The relationship between the course and the global ceramic industry is mutually beneficial and is primarily responsible for the unique character and international reputation of the course. The strength of this award lies in the accumulated wealth of specialist knowledge and practical skills, which are the essential tools of the ceramics designer; and in the good working practices developed over many years. In the close working relationship with industry, and in the clarity of purpose that ensures academic coherence, and the credibility of the award.

Students are encouraged to pursue new and innovative ideas, redefining established ceramic craft and ceramic design market opportunities. These ideas may now be less wedded to the immediate perceived needs of the mass manufacturing industry and for the mass market. As a consequence encouraging students to take a wider perhaps more entrepreneurial, enterprising standpoint – working as designer-producers for example, engaging with small to medium sized factories in developing aspirational products of contemporary relevance with ‘added value’ aimed potentially at new and different niche markets.

The MA Ceramic Design course has in recent years provided the creative genesis for The New English ceramic design brand and the University’s unique Flux, blue and white fine bone china collection.

Course content

Semester 1
-Tools and Techniques
-Collaborative Project

Semester 2
-Ceramic Design, Professional Pathways
-Creativity & Innovation

Semester 3
-The Masters Project

Many of our Ceramic Design graduates now work as designers or senior managers and creative directors within the ceramics and related creative industries. Some have set up in business as designer-producers or as freelance design consultants. And others have become retail developers, stylists, buyers, trend forecasters, lecturers and teachers.

Other admission requirements

For you to be able to execute your own ideas whilst on the course, You would be expected to demonstrate:
-Your ability to communicate your creative design ideas visually, this is critically important. Through traditional sketching and drawing (drawing with your own hand) and through digital techniques (the use of appropriate computer softwares).
-A broad understanding and experience of ceramic moulded techniques (the use of plaster moulds, typically slipcasting) or hand making techniques would be expected.
-Alternatively you may be interested in ceramic surface, ideas for surface pattern design whether this be for graphics; textiles or ceramics.
-Evidence that you have an awareness of the global marketplace for ceramic design, and as such develop innovative ceramic ideas informed by this knowledge.

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Our MA Ceramics course is a project led and studio based programme with tutorial guidance, where you'll produce high quality work through rigorous academic research and creative studio practice.

You'll have the opportunity to create a range of objects, experiment with different materials and processes, and develop your individual style and creativity. Our MA supports a wide range of ceramics practices, including historical, traditional and contemporary, and will encourage innovation in ceramics design and technology.

We'll guide you in maximising your talent and creative ability, so you'll be able to further develop your skills for future engagement with the arts, crafts and design industries.

Our courses are designed for talented, self-motivated individuals wishing to work at the forefront of artistic, creative industries and enterprises.

This course benefits from a cohort of expert staff that includes the nationally and internationally acclaimed ceramicist Professor Magdalene Odundo OBE and Nicholas Lees, as well as a number of visiting artists such as Steve Brown and Clare Twomey.

Throughout the course, you'll have the opportunity to broaden your knowledge and experience by working with your peers from other specialist courses at UCA Farnham, such as our Textiles, Jewellery, Metalwork and Glass courses.

Our Farnham campus boasts first-rate facilities with extensive workshops and equipment to support your study. It's also home to our Crafts Study Centre - a purpose built museum, research centre and gallery dedicated to crafts. The Crafts Study Centre possesses the world's most coherent collection of Leach pottery and a stunning collection of work by Lucie Rie, as well as contemporary makers such as Edmund de Waal.

Facilities

Our Farnham campus provides first-rate facilities with extensive workshops and equipment to support your study. It's also home to our Crafts Study Centre - a purpose-built museum, research centre and gallery dedicated to crafts.

Industry Partners

As part of this course, you'll have access to well-established industry connections. These include:

-Historical research, exhibition and curation with the Watts Gallery

-Links with Froyle Tiles and Lambs Terracotta - providing an opportunity to research interior and exterior architecture, along with restoration and renovation projects

-Local production of Dartington Pottery at the nearby Grayshott Pottery - beneficial to those researching surface and glaze

-Farnham-based 318 Ceramics and the New Ashgate Gallery Trust.

Careers

Our MA Ceramics course will equip you with a host of valuable and transferable skills. Upon successful completion, you might decide to become a self-employed artist, or forge a career within the craft and design industries.

Recent graduates work as:

-Artists

-Designers

-Makers

-Arts administrators

-Gallery curators

-Teachers

-Writers.

Virtual Media Space

Visit our Postgraduate Virtual Media Space to find out more about our courses, see what it's like to study at UCA and gain access to our campus virtual tours.

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MA Ceramics is a challenging course that embraces the unique creative potential of clay and diversity of opportunities within ceramics. This postgraduate course embraces all facets of ceramic work, including: craft and design, functional or decorative, one-off or mass production and sculptural and architectural.

Postgraduate Ceramics is rooted in ‘making’, the course offers a distinctive blend of practice and theory, with the theoretical components underpinning and informing the practical components of the course. The fundamental philosophy of the course is providing the opportunity for students to explore and realise their individual aspirations and potential; creating a framework for students to develop the skills necessary for a career in professional practice. Through discussion with course supervisors, students are able to form a uniquely individual, tailor made programme of study.

INDUSTRY LINKS

The course has links with UK based ceramic organisations and events, together with a number of international ceramics programmes; allowing the opportunity for overseas study.

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT AND ASSESSMENT

Through the collective community, students have access to a wide range of staff expertise and extensive workshops and studio resources. All MA Course Tutors are highly regarded professional practitioners. They are actively involved within various facets of ceramic research and regularly publish and exhibit their work both nationally and internationally.

There are broad outlines to the nature of the deliverable aspects for assessment, but the final form of the assessment strategy and criteria is the result of collaboration between student and staff.

FURTHER INFORMATION

You get to see the best of contemporary work and the most influential historical work. Final year study is tailored to individual student interests and professional opportunity. Tutors have both national and international profiles and are well known for their innovative approach to the discipline.

Work within any area of contemporary ceramic practice – design (tableware, sanitary-ware, domestic products, surface, architectural etc.), production (prototyping, hand formed, or sculptural) or applied technology.

The theoretical modules inform and underpin the practical aspects of the course, providing the contextual framework for the study of contemporary ceramic design and craft practice. Throughout the duration of the course, students are required to keep an on-going 'reflective diary' that is used to record all lines of enquiry, development of ideas, critical reflection and analysis.

By the end of the programme all students should have a cohesive body of work to a professional standard and be able to clearly articulate a sound intellectual rationale and a broader critical viewpoint. The programme culminates in public exhibition of their work. The course forms part of a broader ‘community’ of MA design courses, encouraging an interchange of ideas and wider critical appreciation.

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The spirit of Ceramics & Glass at the RCA springs from the heart of those media, and a belief in the transformative power of material thinking, research and making to enrich our world in imaginative and meaningful ways. The programme is a site for contemporary discourse where personal concerns and global perspectives intersect. We seek those with passion to extend the possibilities and perspectives of ceramics and glass within and beyond traditional limitations, informed by their rich provenance of materials and practices.

The Ceramics & Glass MA at the RCA provides outstanding opportunities to develop a dynamic, informed and connected practice in a study environment that embraces diversity and depth. We believe in interrogating practices and challenging conventions. 

Our hyper-material age presents exciting and critical opportunities to explore cultures of production; to ask questions about what, why and how we make; to express ideas through the symbolic modes of things and transformative character of substances, and to consider how our work can influence physical, personal and psycho-social environments. We challenge and encourage you to stretch your imagination, expand your potential and find your voice.

The MA spectrum of enquiry includes art and design works, design for manufacture and the built environment, emerging experimental practices and applications. Curiosity is nurtured through the imaginative exploration of concepts, the investigation of material properties and technologies, the potential of interdisciplinary practice and collaboration. Making, thinking and writing skills are integrated to develop critical perspectives of practice and purpose, and to foster new understandings of our interaction with ‘things’.

The exceptional ceramic and glass facilities at the Royal College underpin a dynamic study environment led by outstanding teachers and technical experts, supported by contributions from peers, acclaimed visiting lecturers and graduates, who have shaped the programme’s leading research and international standing over many years.

The MA study experience integrates studio-based project learning with a formal dialogue in Critical & Historical Studies, scaffolded by the rigour of enquiry and reflective practice. Workshops, lectures, visiting experts and collaboration opportunities are supplemented by seminars and personal tutorials to provide guidance, foster critical reflection and encourage the development of individual trajectories and ambitions.

The programme offers:

• individual studio work spaces
• well-equipped workshops with facilities for undertaking an extensive range of ceramic and glass processes, both analogue and digital
• access to specialist facilities across the Royal College of Art, including foundry, rapid form fabrication
•  exceptional teaching by an international team of experienced, dedicated staff
• a regular visiting lecturer and guest lecturer programme of leading artists, designers and craftspeople
• outstanding technical support from a team of highly skilled specialist staff
• a strong research culture with support for project and doctoral funding
• alumni include Flavie Audi, Barnaby Barford, Neil Brownsword, Phoebe Cummings, Mike Eden, Malene Hartmann-Rasmussen, Hitomi Hosono, Shelley James, Studio Manifold, Nao Matsunaga, Katharine Morling, Zemer Peled, Rothschild/Bickers, James Rigler, Anders Ruhwald, Clare Twomey

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First Year

The first year consists of three main projects, one per term that will explore different intellectual themes and contexts in which you might work.

During the autumn term, students work from the collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum to explore the notion of the role that an object might fulfil. It lays the foundations of the research skills associated with developing material and process understanding and the cultural and social history imbedded in an object.

The spring term presents students with the opportunity to explore the theme of ‘Food’: its cultural significance, presentation and consumption.

The summer term is concerned wit the terrain of Wall, Floor, Window.

During the first two terms alongside the projects, a series of short course/workshops/masterclasses will be offered to widen students skill base and material/process understanding. These cover such topics as:

- Plaster making
- Print
- Glass – hot working
- Glass – cold working
- Glass – casting
- Jigger/jolley
- Decorative processes – ceramics
- Hand forming processes
- Basic glaze technology
- Rubber moulds
- Digital Design
- Digital Manufacture
- 3D Print
- Laser Cutting

Second Year

Through the second year, individual programmes of study will be negotiated with Personal Tutors exploring the context and working methods that will inform an individual’s future practice. There are opportunities to engage with a range of staff and visiting lecturers, and student led discussions and seminars are encouraged to promote independent thinking.

Critical & Historical Studies

The RCA provides a unique environment for postgraduate art and design students to reflect upon their own practice, and to engage with students from their own and other disciplines. The role of Critical & Historical Studies (CHS) is to support the studio programmes in enabling these critical engagements to take place. The courses offered by CHS to first year studio-based MA students propose an intellectual framework within which they can begin to establish a coherent relationship between theory and practice.

In the autumn and spring terms there are a series of College-wide seminars and lectures. The autumn term series will relate to your particular discipline (though it is possible to elect to join a series being offered to students on other programmes) whereas the spring term series will be more broad-based and cross-disciplinary in nature.

In the spring and summer terms, a CHS tutor will give you individual tutorials to support the development of a dissertation which is submitted at the start of the second year. The dissertation should be between 6,000–10,000 words in length – this is a major piece of work and you will be not be able to submit for the Final Examination until you have passed this assessment.

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This is a radical post-disciplinary programme for practitioners who want to push the boundaries of what design can be and do. On this MA we work with you to transform your practice as a critical and social undertaking. By challenging the role and norms of traditional design towards an emerging type of ‘advanced design’, unshackled from the history of specialisms and entrenched methods, you will become part of a community of practice. You'll be encouraged to actively contribute to a deep understanding of how design is set to address and affect change within contemporary society.

You'll choose to situate yourself within one of six thematic Studios, each with a distinct identity:
•Cities & Urbanism
•Communication & Experience
•Fashions & Embodiment
•Innovation & Service
•Interaction & Technology
•Participation & Politics

Your learning will centre around projects, which you'll investigate alongside fellow students, faculty and visiting experts. The Studios are spaces where we encourage you to materially experiment, question your practice, evolve new design languages and engage with contemporary discourses, with the aims of tackling the new contexts of consumption, production and possibility.

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This is an intensive, vocational course with strong professional links to the industry, offering a maximum of four students, with high levels of painting and drawing skills, the opportunity to develop their careers as scenic artists. The skills and techniques acquired on this course are to the level necessary for theatre, television, film and animation industries..

During the year students acquire an understanding of professional practice and standards, and gain in-depth skills and experience in scenic art techniques and their application, combined with the practice of managing a scenic art department.

The Course has 3 very intensive terms during which students paint the sets for the School’s six main house public productions, offering them the opportunity to see their finished work used on stage in a wide range of public performances and venues. Teaching is led by the School’s Head of Scenic Art in collaboration with visiting industry professionals who provide master-classes in a range of skills and techniques that include; life drawing, portraiture, perspective, marbling, wood-graining, polystyrene carving and painting for animation. The scenic art students work collaboratively with the School’s other production departments, and most especially with design students. Furthering their introduction to the industry, work placements with principal companies are arranged during the course; particular attention is placed on students developing their own professional portfolio. Upon graduation students will showcase their work in a public exhibition and be interviewed by some of the UK’s leading industry practitioners. In a freelance industry most of our graduates begin working as assistants for scenic artists, scenic workshops and large theatre companies, eventually becoming supervising scenic artists themselves.

Recent graduate employment; The Royal Opera House, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Cardiff Theatrical Services, The Royal National Theatre, Northern Ballet, TR2 Plymouth, Richard Nutbourne - Cool Flight Ltd, Cameron Macintosh's National Tour of ‘Mary Poppins’, Disney's ‘Aladdin’, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ for Warner Brothers. Film work includes; Wes Anderson's ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ and ‘Isle of Dogs’ (still in production) Tim Burton's ‘Frankenweenie’, Aardman Animations' ‘Shaun the Sheep’, ‘Pirates’ and ‘Early Man’ (still in production). TV work includes 'Will' for TNT and ‘Crazy Face’ for Netflix.

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