Art and Visual Culture MA

5.0
3 reviews
  • I had a great year learning your to be more independent and to take care of myself in a better way. The first couple of weeks was little difficult for me but with the time I got settled in well and I enjoy my student life in the UK.
    |
  • I had a great year learning your to be more independent and to take care of myself in a better way. The first couple of weeks was little difficult for me but with the time I got settled in well and I enjoy my student life in the UK.
    |
  • I applied there for continuing studies.The LSE summer programme is excellent for udergraduate students, graduate students lookin gto fullfill certain requirements, career people looking for additional credentials or just about anyone who is interested in a rigorous and demanding summer programme.
    |

Postgraduate

In London

£ 5,500 + VAT

Description

  • Type

    Postgraduate

  • Location

    London

This multidisciplinary, visual theory-based course is established around the belief that visual literacy and the impact of visual forms of thinking and working now play significant roles in society. The course introduces you to a range of historical and contemporary debates that inform the theories and practice of visual culture, and enables you to develop a conceptual framework within which to evaluate the role of the visual arts, and other forms of visual production, in contemporary society and culture.
You will acquire creative and professional research skills, such as the ability to work from exhibitions, art works and institutional archives, to be able to operate within different artistic and conceptual frameworks.
Course content.
This Masters balances historical and theoretical debates in the field of visual culture studies with a rigorous interrogation of cultural practices across a range of topics, including: activism and popular politics; contemporary visual arts, capitalism and culture; globalisation and new media technologies; institutions and their archives; and the material culture of the city. The course also draws upon the cultural institutions and intellectual resources of central London, and has established contacts with other galleries and organisations for work placements.
Modules
The following modules are indicative of what you will study on this course. For more details on course structure and modules, and how you will be taught and assessed, see the full course document.
Core modules
DISSERTATION
This extended piece of research work is an opportunity for you to pursue a topic of individual interest, and is conducted through individual study and directed supervision. The module is designed to support and develop your independent research skills.
VISUAL CULTURE: PRODUCTION, DISPLAY AND DISCOURSE
This module provides a wide-ranging introduction to the history and theory of visual culture by focusing on the production, deployment and...

Facilities

Location

Start date

London
See map
Harrow Campus, Northwick Park, HA1 3TP

Start date

On request

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Reviews

5.0
excellent
  • I had a great year learning your to be more independent and to take care of myself in a better way. The first couple of weeks was little difficult for me but with the time I got settled in well and I enjoy my student life in the UK.
    |
  • I had a great year learning your to be more independent and to take care of myself in a better way. The first couple of weeks was little difficult for me but with the time I got settled in well and I enjoy my student life in the UK.
    |
  • I applied there for continuing studies.The LSE summer programme is excellent for udergraduate students, graduate students lookin gto fullfill certain requirements, career people looking for additional credentials or just about anyone who is interested in a rigorous and demanding summer programme.
    |
100%
4.6
excellent

Course rating

Recommended

Centre rating

ANONYMOUS

5.0
20/11/2020
About the course: I had a great year learning your to be more independent and to take care of myself in a better way. The first couple of weeks was little difficult for me but with the time I got settled in well and I enjoy my student life in the UK.
Would you recommend this course?: Yes

ANONYMOUS

5.0
20/11/2020
About the course: I had a great year learning your to be more independent and to take care of myself in a better way. The first couple of weeks was little difficult for me but with the time I got settled in well and I enjoy my student life in the UK.
Would you recommend this course?: Yes

Sarah Tybor

5.0
13/09/2018
What I would highlight: I applied there for continuing studies.The LSE summer programme is excellent for udergraduate students, graduate students lookin gto fullfill certain requirements, career people looking for additional credentials or just about anyone who is interested in a rigorous and demanding summer programme.
What could be improved: Great course.
Would you recommend this course?: Yes
*All reviews collected by Emagister & iAgora have been verified

This centre's achievements

2018

All courses are up to date

The average rating is higher than 3.7

More than 50 reviews in the last 12 months

This centre has featured on Emagister for 14 years

Subjects

  • Politics
  • Art
  • Public
  • Media
  • Production
  • New Media

Course programme


This Masters balances historical and theoretical debates in the field of visual culture studies with a rigorous interrogation of cultural practices across a range of topics, including: activism and popular politics; contemporary visual arts, capitalism and culture; globalisation and new media technologies; institutions and their archives; and the material culture of the city. The course also draws upon the cultural institutions and intellectual resources of central London, and has established contacts with other galleries and organisations for work placements.
Modules
The following modules are indicative of what you will study on this course. For more details on course structure and modules, and how you will be taught and assessed, see the full course document.
Core modules
DISSERTATION
This extended piece of research work is an opportunity for you to pursue a topic of individual interest, and is conducted through individual study and directed supervision. The module is designed to support and develop your independent research skills.
VISUAL CULTURE: PRODUCTION, DISPLAY AND DISCOURSE
This module provides a wide-ranging introduction to the history and theory of visual culture by focusing on the production, deployment and discourses of art, particularly as these are theorised in the writings of artists themselves. Philosophical, aesthetic and theoretical perspectives are used to explore vision as a social and cultural process, and the circulation of art as a social, cultural and political process.
VISUAL CULTURE: THEORETICAL AND CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
This module introduces you to the theoretical debates that have contributed to the field of visual culture studies, including consideration of the politics of representation, the reproduction of images, subjectivity and the body, new media, globalisation, and the discourse of the ‘other’. You will also focus on an examination of the ways that theories and objects may emerge through and conflict with each other.
Option modules
Choose four from:
CAPITALISM AND CULTURE
Beginning with Marx’s famous account of the commodity in the first chapter of Capital, this module explores a range of theoretical accounts of capitalism and examines their significance to the analysis of different cultural forms, including film, literature, and the contemporary visual arts. In doing so, you will consider changing conceptions of ‘culture’ itself, and its varying relations to ideas of art, modernity, production, the mass, autonomy, spectacle, and the culture industry.
ENGAGING THE ARCHIVE
Through workshops and seminars, this module introduces you to practical and theoretical issues of using archives for the purposes of research or exhibition. With privileged access to the unique collections of the University of Westminster Archive, the module will enable you to examine: the principles of archival practice; how context, authorship, intentionality and audience participate in the construction of meanings of archive documents; the politics of the archive, including curatorial and artistic intervention, and the creation of alternative histories; the impact of digitisation, and issues of copyright and authorship.
EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY
This module will look at different curatorial strategies that organisations use, from group shows around a specific theme to solo artist's exhibitions, from historical shows to contemporary work, from traditional printed photographs hung in frames to art made for public spaces. It examines how exhibiting the digital image, on-line or as a networked image, presents many different concerns as well as opportunities.
Galleries and spaces studied on the module include The Photographers' Gallery, which is one of the first public galleries in the world dedicated to exhibiting photography as art, the Victoria and Albert Museum which was one of the first museums to ever collect photography and therefore has an unrivalled collection representing the history of photography, the Science Museum and National Portrait Gallery.
INTERPRETING SPACE
This module studies the ways that various forms of space are used in cultural life, and how they are represented visually, from architectural spaces, urban spaces, public and private spaces, inhabited and non-inhabited spaces to virtual spaces. The module examines relationships between space and place in order to explore how cultural forms are located in, and productive of, space. The module also includes a range of site visits.
REPRESENTING WORLD CULTURES
This module examines the issues and practices involved in presenting non-western cultures to a diverse audience through visual practices. You will look at how representation produces meaning, and consider the main frameworks that can help you understand how cultures are represented in a range of contexts. Key issues explored include: postcolonialism; globalisation; the relationship between photography and ideology; the ethics of representation; the birth of the museum; contemporary roles of western cultural institutions; and audiences as citizens and consumers. The module is run through seminars and workshops in London museums and archives.
URBAN CULTURES
Using a range of theoretical, historical, literary, cinematic, visual and other cultural texts, you will explore the idea of urban culture as it has developed since the mid-19th century. The module considers a variety of different representations of the city, and the ways in which they understand the specificity of urban experience itself. You will also explore the changing global forms and interrelations of ‘western’ and ‘non-western’ urban forms.
WORK PLACEMENTS IN CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
This module aims to enable students to gain first-hand experience of working within a context relevant to their career objectives; to enhance the opportunities for translating theoretical and practical knowledge into professional skills and to encourage students to make beneficial connections within a professional context.
Course team
Dr Sara Dominici, Course leader
Dr Kaja Marczewska
Dr Alexa Wright
Dr Alison Craighead
Professor John Beck
Dr David Cunningham
Dr Matthew Charles
Dr Georgina Colb
Dr Peter Ride
Professor Alexandra Warwick
Associated careers
Graduates will be equipped for roles in the creative industries, including museum and gallery work, education, arts administration and marketing, or could pursue further study to PhD level. The course is also suitable for practising artists wishing to further their research.
Additional costs information
To check what your tuition fees cover and what you may need to pay for separately, see our What tuition fees cover page.
Related courses
Cultural and Critical Studies MA
Museums, Galleries and Contemporary Culture MA

Art and Visual Culture MA

£ 5,500 + VAT