Page 2 of 5, 69 Master Programs in Art Studies in London, United Kingdom for 2024

MA Painting at the Royal College of Art is a world-leading, studio-based MA programme with a successful record of turning out artists working at the forefront of the discipline and of international standing. Through our innovative approaches to teaching and learning, we foster a student to consider painting as a creative, self-reflexive, and critical activity that draws on a wealth of diverse historical, material and conceptual disciplinary resources as it thrives in the 21st century.

The Jewellery & Metal programme seeks to unpick the relationship between people and things, pushing beyond the subject-object binary JaM students explore the multiple ways we are entrapped and enthralled by the complex entanglement of the material and immaterial worlds. Through emergent acts of making, JaM believes we can shed new light on these complex and essential relationships, revealing great depths in our understanding of, and being in, the world.

Curating is a creative, dynamic and diverse practice, constantly changing in relation to its context, to the work of artists and a range of cultural practitioners, and to the interests and expectations of audiences. When you join the Curating Contemporary Art MA (CCA) you join a well-established and highly influential programme and community of students actively contributing to how curating is understood, practised and thought about across the globe.

The spirit of Ceramics & Glass at the RCA springs from a belief in the transformative power of material thinking, research and making to enable a new generation of artists and designers to enrich our world in imaginative and meaningful ways. Core to our philosophy is an exploration of how we can make ideas manifest through a tacit exploration of active materials and the generative potential of the process.

The MA Animation programme at the Royal College of Art has a world-class reputation for artistic, director-led creative practice and innovative risk-taking and our students also explore the increasingly porous borders between animation, virtual reality, augmented reality, or new media art. The programme maintains an ethos and environment of experimentation and creativity built on a foundation of social and cultural interrogation and contextual and critical thinking.

The MFA Communication programme interrogates the fundamental ways in which communication shapes our lives, and uses this knowledge to develop new ways of experiencing, interacting and communicating with the world. The programme makes space for conversation, inter-cultural exchange, new ideas and diverse voices. You will explore social, political, environmental and philosophical implications of communication practices and how these may be manifested within the your chosen field of practice.

Extend your practice, locate and expand its professional potential and explore your agency in forging the future of arts and humanities.

Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) at the Royal College of Art is a cutting-edge MA programme in the School of Arts & Humanities that is driven by a post-medium, critical approach to the making and reception of art, where theory and practice come together to form new ways of responding to the contemporary world. The programme supports the development of your art practice within a responsive, dialogical and critical context with an emphasis on wider political issues – interrogating art production in relation to urgent socio-political contexts as well as questioning and redefining practice.

The Expanded Photography MA embraces photography as an expanded field, encompassing specialisms such as virtual photography, photobooks, documentary, art, fashion, editorial, photojournalism, and writing photography. This course will motivate you to learn skills, develop knowledge, and expanding expertise in the thinking and practice of photography.

The Museums, Galleries and Contemporary Culture MA studies how museums, galleries and other cultural institutions are changing to meet the needs of the 21st century. The MA is for you if you're pursuing a career as a curator, arts organiser, museum professional or another cultural manager, and in particular if you want to know how these institutions face contemporary issues. The course looks at the changing role of cultural provision and how agencies, festivals and flexible organisations shape, house, fund, and disseminate culture today. It also gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself in the contemporary debates about working practices in cultural institutions and the changing context in which organisations operate. The MA focuses on professional practice, and you'll work closely with institutions such as the Museum of London and conduct case studies into creative projects run by organisations as diverse as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Modern, smaller independent galleries and London-based festivals and arts organisations. Classes are taught off-site at other institutions and involve professionals from the sector as much as possible to give you an understanding of vocational issues and a close involvement in the workplace.

The Art and Visual Culture MA is part of the Cultural and Literary Studies Suite, a cluster of four MAs that bring together academics, curators and practitioners who share a commitment to investigating modern and contemporary culture from aesthetic, critical, literary, and experiential perspectives. You'll share classes with students from the Cultural and Critical Studies MA, the English Literature: Modern and Contemporary Fictions MA, and the Museum, Galleries and Contemporary Culture MA, joining a fruitful and intellectually-rigorous environment designed to facilitate the sprouting of interdisciplinary thinking. As part of our Suite, you may also choose an option module from the other three MA programmes (what is referred to as an ‘elective’ module), a fantastic opportunity to explore a facet of culture outside of your chosen MA programme. The Art and Visual Culture MA is an interdisciplinary, visual theory-based course established around the belief that visual literacy and the impact of visual forms of thinking and working play significant roles in our society. In the course, we interrogate visual perception and representation in high and popular culture, explore how these produce meanings, and how such meanings shape societies and individuals.

The Islamic Middle East has given rise to an impressive material culture that continues in the present. This programme covers an area stretching from Islamic Spain through the Arab countries, Turkey, Iran and Central Asia in diverse historical periods. It offers students an unmatched opportunity to study particular regions or categories of art, including Fatimid art; the architecture and urbanism of Morocco; Arab, Persian and Turkish painting; the calligraphy and illumination of the Qur'an; Mamluk art and architecture; the arts and architecture of the Ottomans in Turkey and the Balkans; and the material culture of western Iran. Archaeological issues of the Islamic Middle East are also considered.

This programme is an unrivalled opportunity to study the arts of China, Korea and Japan. Students consider a wide range of East Asian arts, from Chinese archaeology to Japanese prints, Korean installation works to Buddhist monuments, exploring their specificity and the links between them, in historical and contemporary periods. In many parts of East Asia, archaeological evidence is key to understanding early societies. The programme, therefore, relates excavated materials to the history of art.

This programme is a unique opportunity to study the History of Art and/or Archaeology of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Students concentrate on architecture, sculpture, painting and the decorative arts and have the option of pursuing topics and approaches more archaeological in focus. They consider theoretical and methodological questions and are invited to question the relevance of the disciplinary distinction between History of Art and Archaeology to the study of the non-Western world. Courses cover a time period spanning from antiquity to present-day, contemporary art.

This MPhil/PhD Creative Arts programme provides advanced training and research experience at a doctoral level in the Creative Arts, broadly understood to encompass a range of expressive and performing arts (including dance and theatre), embodied traditions of knowledge (including oratory and artisanal techniques), and aesthetics. The programme recognises that certain established cultural forms fall between the conventional disciplinary boundaries of the Western academy (including dance-dramas, puppetry, fashion, perfumery, and digital artworks) and draws upon the collective expertise of members of the School of Arts to create a platform for critical engagement with these forms. Members of the School of Arts cover a broad geographical area, across Asia and the Middle East, Africa, and diasporic cultures. We also have PhD students working on projects that fall outside of this geographical expanse, including research on Europe and the Americas. Staff often have research interests in issues that cross regional boundaries; our Department Staff page has a summary of their interests, research specialisms and activities. Students in the School of Arts use a variety of research methods, including fieldwork, interview, archival research, recording and filming, performance, transcription and analysis, composition, and curatorial projects. A key feature of the degree in Creatve Arts is the scope for Practice Research, where relevant. This may include design portfolios, installations, and performance. Most SOAS research students spend some time doing fieldwork in the regions of their research. Through SOAS’ various connections with individuals and institutions in the universities and governments of Asia and Africa, students may be able to benefit from personal contacts and introductions.