- Location
- Falmouth Campus
- Length
- 1 year full-time
- Direct line
- 01326 213730
- Admissions
- admissions@falmouth.ac.uk
Falmouth University's MA Fine Art: Contemporary Practice provides postgraduate education in contemporary art for practitioners and graduates who wish to challenge, extend or transform their art practice through a focused combination of practical and theoretical enquiry.
The course enables you to produce and exhibit a body of work commensurate with professional practice and to articulate its relevance and meaning within broader social and theoretical contexts.
We place emphasis on your own practice and the concerns and modes of making that your work seeks to engage with. This is accomplished through a focused combination of practical and theoretical enquiry, research, contextualisation and public dissemination.
This course foregrounds the making of art as a process of enquiry or research practice. This enquiry may encompass diverse modes of production (for example, image, object, network, site, surface, spatial, performative, conceptual, temporal, audible) as well as curating, arts administration, aesthetic theory and academic research.
The making of work also entails consideration of what it seeks to engage with. In this respect it deals with dissemination; the experience of art; through exhibition, performance, placement, encounter or social engagement.
Building professional experience
The course aims to produce graduates who will make a significant contribution within the expanding field of contemporary art, both within the region and beyond. You'll be encouraged and supported as an artist to engage with a broader public context.
Professional practice is integral to the course, while also having a specific module that gives it a particular focus. In addition to practising as professional artists, alumni from the course have been involved in setting up galleries, curating exhibitions and establishing artist-led projects and residencies. Others have continued their research on to PhD.
How is the course taught
Teaching is provided through lectures, seminars, crits, one-to-one tutorials and workshops by full- and part-time staff. All staff teaching on the course are active researchers, artists and writers who exhibit, perform or publish nationally and internationally. Students are introduced to contemporary practices and debates relating to broader cultural and philosophical concerns, and more importantly, through specific student contributions, provide a forum for the development, exchange and discussion of ideas. Written and verbal feedback is given following assessment.
Careers
Potential careers include:
- Artist
- Art administrator
- Community artist
- Curator
- Teacher
- Higher research degrees
Assessment
Assessment by module based on practical work, research journal, documentation and written work.
Course outline
The course is 45 weeks full-time, over a year, divided into three study blocks and is operated through the University's postgraduate modular framework.
Emphasis is placed on individual practice and self-directed research, however the first five weeks have an intensive taught programme, partly shared with the other Art MAs, with inductions, lectures, seminars and tutorials taking place most days.
After this the structure is based around individual tutorials, lectures, seminars and crits, taking place around two days per week plus external events, gallery visits and the regular MA guest lecture series. The final 15 weeks are essentially self-directed, with tutorial support, culminating in the final MA Show.
Interview and selection process
Along with your application you will need to send us either some samples of work or a link to your website or blog, if you have one. These can either be sent with your application or separately, by email to admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or by post to:
Admissions, Falmouth University
Woodlane, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 4RH
Once you have applied the course team will assess your application and if we think you have the potential to study at Falmouth we will invite you to an interview. We would really like to see you in person but we can hold a telephone/Skype interview if this is not possible.
