Course description

The highlights

• We're looking for fine artists and photographers who are strongly motivated and independently minded. We will help you to shape your individual creative practice by encouraging reflection and re-evaluation, research and experimentation
   
• Our academic team have a wide range of backgrounds with expertise in fine art, photography, film, public art, performance, curatorship, critical theory, art history, philosophy and criticism, residencies and commissions. We're sure you'll thrive in this diverse creative community
  
  
• You will have access to outstanding facilities, including darkrooms, equipment and software that are the envy of most professional photographers, and recently refurbished Fine Art Studios in our historic Britannia Mill site.

Work creatively across disciplines

This MA Arts is an exciting, challenging and rigorous programme of study, which offers you a choice of two pathways — Photography or Fine Art — so you can focus on one particular discipline and graduate with a named award in that.

At the same time, as the boundaries between visual arts disciplines continue to blur, this Masters will encourage you to take part in a diverse range of activities and collaborate with other art and design students — especially those on the alternative pathway to you — so you develop as a multifaceted, original artist and practitioner.

This programme will bring together a community of photographers and artists in a multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary environment, to explore the interface between media (both traditional and digital) in a stimulating and creatively enabling way. This will provide a unique and exciting opportunity for those who wish to specialise in the interpretation of time and space working creatively, practically and intellectually across disciplines. Discussions and debates around the differences and commonalities of the subject areas will both critically inform and support individual creative practice, including the relevance of the written word through narrative form and theoretical studies.

You will undertake taught studio-based research, while gaining a strong theoretical awareness of contemporary practice. There will be lots of lively debates involving students and staff from a range of disciplines, giving you the opportunity to hear a rich range of voices and contribute your own.

You will also become part of our thriving research culture and be able to attend the staff research seminar series, where colleagues discuss their latest projects.

At the end of the programme, you will take part in the University's Degree Show: a large-scale exhibition of work from final year undergraduate and postgraduate arts students. You can see the highlights from the 2021 MA Degree Show here as well as a video from the 2018 show below.

MA Arts (Photography) pathway

The University of Derby has a long history of excellence in photography, with high student satisfaction ratings and top 20 league table positions. On this MA Arts (Photography), we teach photography as a fine art practice, offering a contemporary and exciting programme. By developing your own projects, you will have the freedom to focus on what interests and excites you.

You will have access to well-resourced facilities that will allow you to experiment with different image-making methods, working across analogue, digital, still or moving image and multimedia installation.

Our University hosts FORMAT International Photography Festival in collaboration with Derby QUAD, which attracts artists from all over the world. This provides you with a unique opportunity to showcase your work and build contacts within the industry.

You will be encouraged to maintain a professional profile during the course. Previous arts students have exhibited at venues such as The Crypt Derby Cathedral, Pickford's House Museum, The Orangery Derby, QUAD, Wirksworth Visual Arts Festival, Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Una Notte al Museo in Milan, Italy, Campbell Works Gallery London, and Fermynwoods Contemporary Arts.

We will inspire you to shape your individual creative practice with relevant theoretical knowledge and experimental approaches, informing a personal voice and engagement within the creative industries.

MA Arts (Fine Art) pathway

This pathway is open to fine art undergraduates as well as people who have studied other art and design disciplines, and who now want to develop their skillset in a fine art context.

On this pathway, we'll encourage you to critically reflect on your personal practice and become more aware of the relationship between your work and your audience. You will consider aspects of curatorial practice and how art works are received by general and specialist audiences.

You will have access to well-staffed and well-resourced fine art studios and a range of 2D/3D making workshops (printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, wood / metal) plus the University's other arts facilities, such as an equipment loan store, digital print workshops and video editing software.

MA Arts (Fine Art) pathway

This pathway is open to fine art undergraduates as well as people who have studied other art and design disciplines, and who now want to develop their skillset in a fine art context.

On this pathway, we'll encourage you to critically reflect on your personal practice and become more aware of the relationship between your work and your audience. You will consider aspects of curatorial practice and how art works are received by general and specialist audiences.

You will have access to well-staffed and well-resourced fine art studios and a range of 2D/3D making workshops (printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, wood / metal) plus the University's other arts facilities, such as an equipment loan store, digital print workshops and video editing software.