MA Fine art

Course detail

Synergies in our Fine Art Programme create a dynamic context for exploring practices and issues within contemporary culture.

In its extended full-time mode MA Fine Art gives you the flexibility to access London's richly varied opportunities for work and study while maximising your personal and professional development.

MA Fine Art provides an extensive final unit of 120 credits (45 weeks) enabling continuous development and realisation of a significant programme of work.

MA Fine Art supports and is shaped by:

• Diversity of professional directions, aspirations and cultural perspectives
• Reflective research-based practice including writing as practice in fine art
• An interrogation of what informs making and how making generates knowledge
• Independent study and practice and critical reflection on definitions of art and its potential within social space
• Exploration of the parameters of contemporary art, building on knowledge of the contexts and frameworks of practice
• Dialogue to determine the conditions of possibility for contemporary art.

About this course

• MA Fine Art lasts 60 weeks structured as two consecutive periods of 30 weeks each (i.e. two academic years) in its 'extended full-time mode'
• MA Fine Art is credit rated at 180 credits, and comprises 2 units: Unit 1 (60 credits) and Unit 2 (120 credits)
• Students successfully achieving Units 1 may exit at this point with the award of Postgraduate Certificate
• Both units must be passed in order to achieve the MA, but the classification of the award of MA derives from the mark for Unit 2 only.

In year one we expect you to commit an average of 40 hours per week. In year two your study is predominantly self-managed but we expect you to commit an average of 20 hours per week. Across the two years, therefore, you're expected to commit an average of 30 hours per week.

Course dates

Autumn term
Monday 24 September 2018 – Friday 7 December 2018
Spring term
Monday 7 January 2019 – Friday 15 March 2019
Summer term
Monday 15 April 2019 – Friday 21 June 2019

Course structure

Artists today recognise the breadth and diversity of the social, cultural, economic and technological contexts for contemporary art. This MA Fine Art course engages with and contributes to change and development in the expanded field of art. Although its core concern is with practice, it promotes the hybrid nature of current art practices by exploring the boundaries of, and the interface between, art and critical ideas.

MA Fine Art actively promotes its identity as a multidisciplinary course focusing on criticality and process through a flexible, mobile approach to contemporary fine art practice and its discourses. We support innovative and experimental practice through the application of ideas, media and materials. At graduation you'll have achieved a resolved level of critical thinking, deepened your understanding of contemporary debates and research methods, and made your practice more professional.

International contemporary art increasingly celebrates the integrated nature of theory and practice. Central to your experience of the course is a growing awareness of the relationship between these elements. MA Fine Art provides a unique and challenging environment in which to establish agendas that will shape the cultural environment of tomorrow.

Course outline

MA Fine Art combines an innovative experience of fine art practice with the integral development of research and writing skills. You can work in and across disciplines that include painting, video, film, installation, sculpture, photography and electronic media.

MA Fine Art emphasises individual learning by negotiating an approach to practice and theory with you. It means you'll be able to locate your practice in the professional and intellectual contexts within which you'll operate as an artist. This commitment to individual practice acknowledges the international models of art practice that inform contemporary art's debates.

MA Fine Art attracts applicants from a wide range of backgrounds and nationalities. Influences from this diverse intake resonate within each cohort and are key to driving the course's agendas and debates, transcending disciplinary or cultural boundaries. The postgraduate course's critical approach is based on theoretical and analytical discourses that, in today's global art world, reflect influences from beyond Europe and North America.

From the outset, an essential programme of study develops your research skills and knowledge of research modes in art-related fields. Your learning extends across our Postgraduate Art Programme, offering invaluable opportunities for peer association and familiarisation with the college's research community. Research underpins the critical exploration of your work, its structuring, context and communication, and drives insight into contemporary cultural debates.

In the spring term of year one the interim exhibition brings together students from across the CSM Postgraduate Art Programme. This is a point in the unit where students will receive formative feedback on their work and progress. Students will prepare their work for a public context in an external venue. Student-led, this initiative offers important experience of the skills required to organise a professional event and to present and test your work appropriately

MA Fine Art supports the development of your thinking and practice through a study plan or 'study statement', introduced and developed during the first 15 weeks. The statement helps you manage your individual practice and articulate concerns as they arise or develop. Your practice is supported through lectures and seminars exploring key theories and critical issues with a range of specialist staff and visiting speakers.

Your study statement, considered alongside work in progress, leads to an agreed individual study programme for Unit 3. This programme addresses your learning and aims as a whole, taking in ideas, research methods and projected forms, as well as the theoretical and professional contexts for your practice.

Unit One - What is practice?

In this Unit you will explore and develop the relationship between your research and your evolving practice.

Drawing on tutorials, critiques and technical workshops, this Unit enables you to orient and develop your practice by investigating and implementing practical and critical processes in line with the aims set out in your Study Statement. You will also be introduced to research skills and methods to help you make informed decisions about appropriate approaches and methods to use in your chosen area of study.

Through the Unit you will develop your study statement, evaluating your research interests as they change over the first part of the course. Your statement grows through a process of continuous reflection that helps you understand your practice and its contexts more clearly. It will provide a considered and focused evaluation of your current concerns and development as an artist, in addition to helping you define your objectives for the rest of the MA course. You each bring a body of knowledge and a cultural perspective to the course and the teaching events in Unit 1 stimulate encounters between these different perspectives through peer presentations, group crits, study statement workshops and a weekly seminar programme.

Running in parallel are lectures introducing you to ideas, discourses and critical positions in contemporary Fine Art Lectures are given by external guest speakers and by staff across the Art Programme, introducing you to their research expertise and interests. These lectures also explore the interface between practice and research and provide a context within which you will become familiar with different approaches to research methods. The diverse range of staff research enables the course to support a broad range of experimental practices, research methods and forms of enquiry.

Unit Two - Realisation of reasearch and practice

You will focus on your developing practice according to questions raised in your study statement and the aims of your research paper. The Unit takes an ambitious approach to practice, heightening your awareness of current ideas and placing your practice in context.

You will be supported in the production of a body of work for exhibition, and in the completion of your agreed written work. Support takes the form of tutorials, technical advice and bookable workshops.

The unit culminates with the degree show. The show takes place at the Kings Cross Campus together with the other courses in the Art Programme. This is the highlight of the year and a great opportunity to make your work visible and to develop your professional network. This is a celebratory event of students’ individual and collective achievements on the course.

By the end of Unit 2 your exhibited and written work should reflect a synthesis of reflexive, conceptual, practical and professional abilities. Your mark for Unit 2 determines the classification of your MA award.

MA Fine Art Programme Specification 2018/19 (PDF, 318KB)

Industry collaborations

Opportunities to work and show collaboratively are an important aspect of the course. These can include international exchanges, external exhibitions and trans-disciplinary partnerships, publication and site specific events. We have recently worked with Tate Modern, Museum of London, Matts Gallery, The Agency, Banner Repeater, TAP Southend and internationally with Tokyo University of the Arts, the International Printmaking Union, ENSAV La Cambre, Brussels, Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

In addition to this we also run the Postgraduate Auction. The auction happens in the autumn term of year two, giving students a direct experience of a live commercial auction. Alongside donated works from alumni and supporters, each student is asked to put up a piece for sale. Proceeds pay for the Interim Show and the catalogue.

Facilities

• 3D Large: Wood

  Find out more about our wood workshops

• Casting

  Find out more about our casting workshop

• Digital Access Print

  Find out more about our digital print facilities at King's Cross

• Print Workshops (Archway)

  Find out more about the printmaking facility at Archway

View all facilities

Staff

Programme Director:Alex Schady

Course Leader:Louisa Minkin

Tutor:Alex Landrum
Tutor:Susan Trangmar
Tutor:Dr Kate Love
TutorMargot Bannerman
Tutor:John Cairns

Associate Lecturer: Nooshin Farhid
Associate Lecturer: Marc Hulson
Associate Lecturer: Ami Clarke