Course summary

Arts University Plymouth is an arts university for the 21st century, preparing students who are uniquely placed to provide creative solutions to the complex global challenges of a changing world. Formerly known as Plymouth College of Art, we were granted full university title in Spring 2022. We are now the city of Plymouth’s first and only specialist arts university, allowing us to offer our students a dynamic and unique learning experience. In May 2022 we were awarded the Best Small or Specialist University at the 2022 WhatUni Student Choice Awards coming top in a list of well-respected specialist UK universities, and in 2023 were awarded Silver in the same category, based on unbiased and honest reviews from students across the UK, in a category that highlights the quality of our provision as a specialist creative university. Arts University Plymouth offers both MA Fine Art and Master of Fine Art (MFA), please read the information below to help you decide which course may be best suited to you. MA Fine Art The MA Fine Art programme encourages you to develop an engaged studio practice while gaining critical and contextual skills, developing your approach to the potential of interdisciplinary working, testing and making. Not limited by a particular practice or discipline, you are able to work across and through drawing, painting, sculpture, video, sound, printmaking, installation and performance, among others. We support the development of an ambitious practice that inhabits a range of contexts, from the traditional gallery to site-specific projects and collaborative working that is critically and materially engaged. You will have the opportunity to contribute to current debates within the subject area, relevant institutional contexts and partners and be encouraged to consider what it means to be an artist in the 21st century. We’ll support you in articulating your ideas, developing your working methods and creating independent work, through individual tutorials, lectures, subject-specific seminars, studio and gallery visits and group critiques, with access to our rich workshop areas and technical resources across the university. Master of Fine Art (MFA) Our Master of Fine Art (MFA) programme gives you the opportunity to enhance your creative profile by executing an ambitious, time-limited project that results in significant public exposure for your body of creative work. The MFA is a platform for experienced creative practitioners who want access to a dynamic and supportive art school environment when bringing a project to fruition. It provides a framework within which to conceive, refine and consolidate an advanced body of work, which will be shared publicly. As an MFA student, you will develop a robust research proposal into a substantial and resolved creative outcome that will be exhibited and assessed in a public venue. With the support of staff who are specialists in your area, and with access to regular group critiques 74 Postgraduate Courses and lectures, you will hone your conception of audience and disseminate your work in an appropriate form. The programme lasts one academic year full-time, or two years part-time, and culminates in an exhibition of creative outcomes. The models of delivery and support that will apply to your work are built around the negotiated proposal that you will provide on application and that you will refine into a robust project plan during the first weeks of the course. You will work with your tutors to fashion a programme that is tailored to the needs of your project. We offer a high level of critical debate and industry standard technical facilities, with access to workshop areas across the university.