MA Fine Art supports the development of your thinking and practice. Teaching includes personal tutorials, group critique and external events.
Unit 1: Enquiry and Process
In Unit 1, you will extend your technical vocabulary and will be introduced to workshops and online teaching events that will help you extend your own practice. Lectures and seminars will introduce research methodologies. You will also explore key theories and critical issues with a range of specialist staff and visiting speakers. Your work in this unit will lead to an agreed individual study programme for Unit 2.
Unit 2: Knowledge and Communication
The emphasis of Unit 2 is to develop your practical, conceptual and technological research. This is formulated through both practice or making and your research paper. You will start with group sessions to facilitate discussion of shared ground and differing concerns. These sessions are designed to help you think through and formulate your ideas into a research paper proposal. The specific contexts and sources of your research will be presented as a focused, critical paper, helping to set the agenda for your work in Unit 3.
Unit 3: Communication and Realisation
During Unit 3 you will be supported in the production of a body of work for public dissemination and presentation. Throughout the unit, you will advance your professional and academic skills to a level that prepares you for post-graduation practices.
Collaborative projects
An important emphasis of the course is self-organisation and co-operative working. As you develop more independence over the course, you will have opportunities to engage with a variety of collaborative projects or practice that involves co-operation. These vary from year-to-year and have recently included international projects, external exhibitions and trans-disciplinary partnerships, publication and site-specific events; in both real and virtual environments. We have also worked across the Art programme, collaborating on projects with other MA and BA courses.
Lecture programme
There are a number of lectures to help contextualise and broaden your practice and its references. Postgraduate lectures offer the opportunity for all members of the MA-level Art programme to meet regularly for debate and engage with contemporary issues that touch all the disciplines. There are additionally, Art programme lectures delivered by visiting artists.
Group Crits
Unit 1 includes a series of Group Crits. These are an important opportunity for you to share your developing work with peers and tutors and to test the work physically in the studio spaces.
Practice events
Units 2 and 3 include a series of practice events. These are an opportunity to curate and present finished work in a group context in the studio project space. These events offer you practice and experience in the curation of work through collective endeavour and engage you in critical discussion with your peers.
Open Studios
The Open Studios are held in the Autumn Term for Year 1 & 2, and the Summer Term for Year 1. These are publicly facing small events, focusing on the development of your work, engaging with a public and developing self-organisational skills.
Interim exhibition
In the Spring term of Year 1 the interim exhibition/event brings together students from across the Central Saint Martins postgraduate Art programme. This initiative provides you with opportunities for directly sharing practice and experience with the broader post-graduate community across the art programme and test your ideas and approach to audience engagement with your work.
Editions exhibition /Selling event
Editions (also known as MERCH) gives you direct experience of commercial enterprise. Based on the format of an edition, each student will produce two prints which will be put up for sale. All second-year students contribute to the preparation and running of the event. Proceeds contribute to the costs for the Interim event and student Showcase activities.
Interim exhibition
This initiative provides you with opportunities for directly sharing practice and experience with the broader post-graduate community across the art programme and test your ideas and approach to audience engagement with your developing work.
Graduate Show
This takes place after your final assessment and is an opportunity to show your work publicly. The exact format and location is determined each year.
Important note concerning academic progression through your course:
If you are required to retake a unit you will need to cease further study on the course until you have passed the unit concerned. Once you have successfully passed this unit, you will be able to proceed onto the next unit. Retaking a unit might require you to take time out of study, which could affect other things such as student loans or the visa status for international students.
Mode of study
MA Fine Art is offered in extended full-time mode which runs for 60 weeks over two academic years. You will be expected to commit 30 hours per week to study, which includes teaching time and independent study.
The course has been designed in this way to enable you to pursue studies, while also undertaking part-time employment, internships or care responsibilities. We would however expect full attendance on the scheduled teaching days (Monday to Wednesday).
Credit and award requirements
The course is credit-rated at 180 credits.
On successfully completing the course, you will gain a Master of Arts (MA degree).
Under the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications, an MA is Level 7. All units must be passed in order to achieve the MA but the classification of the award is derived from the mark for the final unit only.
If you are unable to continue on the course, a Postgraduate Certificate (PG Cert) will normally be offered following the successful completion of 60 credits, or a Postgraduate Diploma (PG Dip) following the successful completion of 120 credits.
