Fine Art: Contemporary Practice MA

fine art practices are a rich and potent source for imagining and developing unique ways of conceiving, thinking, and acting in the world today.

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1 year full-time
2 years part-time
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Why study MA Fine Art: Contemporary Practice at University College Falmouth?

pdf MA Fine Art: Contemporary Practice - additional information (1.36 MB)

MA Fine Art: Contemporary Practice enables you to engage in a substantial period of study to help you review, change, develop and strengthen your position as an artist. The course is designed to encourage artistic responsibility, self-direction, and competence. It enables you to develop an individual expertise, and to foster the professional excellence necessary to operate successfully as an artist.

Tell me more about the MA Fine Art: Contemporary Practice course

Fine Art Contemporary Practice MA

The course is designed to support a sustained period of enquiry that enables you to attain a high level of artistic practice and professional competence. It fosters the belief that fine art practices are a rich and potent source for imagining and developing unique ways of conceiving, thinking, and acting in the world today. As such, the importance of practice is emphasised as an essential method of instigating, investigating and making sense of ideas and concepts.

To compliment the idea of learning through making, your artwork, and its associated ideas and concepts, will be subjected to artistic and critical scrutiny. This provides a means of gaining a critically informed understanding of your own individual practice and its position within the field of contemporary art.

Mark Walker - MA Fine Art Contemporary Practice The course focuses on ideas and concerns of contemporary art to provide a common ground for students. It actively celebrates the diversity of contemporary practice. Inspiration for recent projects have been drawn from areas including archives, narratives, philosophies, personal histories, sciences, literatures, geographies, religions, space, gender, childhood memory, time, technologies, body, weather cycles, gardening, perception and ritual.

In terms of your own individual practice, you will be encouraged to initiate and develop artworks in any media that you believe to be appropriate for expressing and representing your ideas. Students on the course have produced work using a range of media including drawing, textiles, fibre arts, painting, printmaking, textual practices, sculpture, performance, installation, video, sound, photography and digital media .

Course Leader Profile

Dr Daro Montag

An international leader in his field, Daro's work concerns the integration of art with contemporary ecological thinking and real world issues. His research examines the creative potential of organic materials and processes. His work on art and climate change led to his being invited to participate in the 2009 Cape Farewell expedition to the Peruvian glaciers and rainforest. Previously his work has been exhibited at galleries in the UK, USA, Europe and United Arab Emirates, and published in a number of journals and books. In 2002 he was awarded the prestigious L'Oreal Art-Science prize in Tokyo, and has also worked with the Institute of Animal Health, the Met Office and Deutsche Bank. He also leads the RANE research group at Falmouth.

Visiting speakers this year have included:

Rona Lee
Neville Gaby
WHW (What, How & for Whom)
Simon Morrissey
Tabatha Andrews
Sara Black
Claire Doherty
Paul O'Neill
David Prior
Abigail Reynolds

Answers and advice about the course

If you have any queries about the course please visit our HelpMe Forum.

HelpMe Forum: MA Fine Art: Contemporary Practice

Additional information

pdf 2010 Postgraduate Prospectus (4.82 MB)

Funding your study

A Master’s degree represents a significant investment in your future, and you will rightly be concerned about funding. Our student fees & funding section outlines fees for full and part time students and has guides to introduce you to ways of funding your course at Falmouth.

Creative Enterprise Cornwall

Put your skills to use in Cornwall's dynamic business environment on a paid placement project

Creative Enterprise Cornwall is a project offering financial support to postgraduate students who live in Cornwall during their studies. It is run by University College Falmouth and part-funded by the European Social Fund. The aim of the project is to promote graduate opportunities within Cornwall - develop new business skills if you are changing your career, or use the opportunity to strengthen the skills you already have. A maximum of £1250 is available.

The placement project must meet the following criteria:

It must take place in Cornwall or benefit a Cornish company
It must meet your course objectives (Course Leader must agree to the placement)
Must be a minimum of one working week in duration (maximum 3 weeks) and be confirmed by the company

More information about the project can be found here

Sandra Blow Scholarship

This new scholarship for MA Fine Art: Contemporary Practice students was bestowed on the College from the legacy of Sandra Blow, the English painter, who lived in St Ives from 1994 until her death in 2006. The end of an MA course is a crucial juncture in the career of a new artist, and the purpose of the scholarship is to assist graduating students in the first few months of their career. For example, the winner may choose to use the money to pay for studio space. Students will be selected for the scholarship before the end of their course, by a panel including the Course Leader and the Director of Art and Performance. The scholarship is worth £5,000 each year, to be shared between two or three students.

More information about funding for Postgraduate study is available here

Career opportunities

Graduates of this postgraduate course in fine art engage in individual and collaborative arts practice, community, architectural and environmental arts projects, curatorial activities, art education or further study.

Entry requirements

Entry requirements through the university sector include Honours Degrees, Foundation Degrees and HNDs in a related subject. If you have solid professional industry experience rather than academic achievement, this may be acceptable for entry to study at this level through a process called APEL (Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning).

More information about entry requirements and applying for our postgraduate courses can be found here

For further information about MA Fine Art: Contemporary Practice at University College Falmouth, please email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 213730.