What you will study
This course will help you to enhance your research and analytical skills as an integral aspect of your studio practice.
Your own research is augmented by collaborative work, seminars and talks. Within a diverse cohort of students, you'll challenge one another's world views, towards an in depth understanding of cultural production.
You will amass a substantial body of work, develop and apply highly attuned analytical skills, practice innovative exhibition strategies and hone your confidence as an artist.
Typically students must complete 120 credits at each level, totalling 240 credits by the end of the degree.
Year 1 modules
The teaching in the first year supports students in establishing their studio practice and critical skills. Sessions with key professionals in contemporary art then go on to assist students in developing the research and professional skills they need to sustain a career. This is then followed by a period in which students (in dialogue with their peers) explore their strengthened individual practice and research through making and reflecting on modes for disseminating art.
Core module (plus the modules in option 1 OR option 2)
Practice and Critique
60 credits
This module aims to enable you to develop a body of artwork with reference to artworks, art historical, theoretical, inter-disciplinary and wider cultural contexts. The module integrates theory and practice to allow you to develop and apply individually developed critical tools in order to make and analyse your own work and the work of your peers. You will become able to express your abilities to reflect and be critical through making, recording, documentation and evaluation of ideas from within your discipline and from the wider interdisciplinary environment. The Practice and Critique module introduces making, verbal and written communication skills to allow you to position your developing practice. This enables you to begin to understand the field of your practical research and your potential contribution to that field.
Option 1
Extended Research and Professional Skills
60 credits
This module builds on the grounding work of the Practice and Critique Module by developing research skills alongside a range of professional skills. The module aims to provide you with comparative models of what research means in the context of a fine art practice alongside differing models of professional practice. To this end students will understand for example the difference between research-led practice and practice-based-research. You will be expected to understand how issues of funding, project management, institutional frameworks and organisation impact on the production and reception of artworks. You will learn the conceptual implications of these structures on your art as you further define the field of your research. The module will develop written, presentation, technical, artistic and communication skills as ways and means of expressing research. You will also begin to establish professional and organisational structures that are appropriate to your research and arts practice. These methods of organising and making your work public will enable you to successfully complete the course and sustain your research and art after graduating. The distinguishing feature of the larger credit version of this module (60 credits) is a fully costed project or exhibition proposal with documentation of current and past work.
Option 2
Research and Professional Skills
30 credits
This module builds on the grounding work of the Practice and Critique module by developing research skills alongside a range of professional skills. The module aims to provide you with comparative models of what research means in the context of a fine art practice alongside differing models of professional practice. To this end students will understand for example the difference between research-led practice and practice-based-research. You will be expected to understand how issues of funding, institutional frameworks and organisation impact on the production and reception of artworks. You will learn the conceptual implications of these structures on your art as you further define the field of your research. The module will develop written, presentation, technical, artistic and communication skills as ways and means of expressing research. You will also begin to establish professional and organisational structures that are appropriate to your research and arts practice. These methods of organising and making your work public will enable you to successfully complete the course and sustain your research and art after graduating.
Art Theory: Modernist, Avant-Garde, Contemporary
30 credits
Based on a study of artists' texts, art criticism, art history and philosophical writings on art, this module comprises a critical examination of the legacy and possibilities of modernist and avant-garde criticism in contemporary art theory. As well as introducing students to some of the major texts and ideas in these traditions of art theory and art criticism, the modules aims to enable students to reflect critically on works of contemporary art in the light of their study.
Final year modules
In the second year of the MFA you are given the time, teaching, support and discursive framework to consolidate their independent practice and research. You will work towards the completion of a final major exposition of work that signals a critical engagement with notions of dissemination and publication in the field of contemporary art. The final major exposition is the culmination of the technical, critical, professional and organisational skills learnt earlier in the course.
Core modules
Extended Practice
60 credits
This module aims to enable you to develop your practice with reference to individually identified cultural and social contexts and begins to examine in more depth the relation of artworks to audience. You will be encouraged to apply developed critical tools in order to make and analyse your own work and the work of your peers. You will consider a wider interdisciplinary environment, working individually and collaboratively to investigate and disseminate your work inside and outside of the studio. During the module you will be expected to present your work in the public arena and may work together or individually to test the most appropriate platform for the dissemination of your work. The Extended Practice module allows you time to focus on your strengthened individual positions through making and testing and reflection on appropriate modes for disseminating work.
Final Major Exposition
60 credits
|This module is the bringing together and culmination of the strands of learning from earlier modules. This includes but is not limited to a consolidation of your skills with regard to critique, professional frameworks and organisation, research and studio practice. Having tested strategies for disseminating work in the previous module this module focuses on the realisation of an ambitious project with an accompanying publication. It is expected that your final project and publication will fully realise and expresses the conceptual terrain that your current research and art has mapped out and take a form appropriate to the enquiry you are making. The publication will take a form pertinent to your art and research and is understood as a visual and written culmination of the thinking carried out in the previous modules. The Final Major Exposition module allows students enough time to achieve an ambitious final project and publication that signals a critical engagement with notions of dissemination and publication in the field of contemporary art.
