About MA Visual Art Practices

Application:  IADT

What is  the MA Visual Arts Practices?

This Masters of Arts programme is based in the centre of Dublin, and encompasses pathways in art-making, criticism and curating. The programme begins in January and can be completed in either a 12 or 24 month period.

The MA in Visual Arts Practices (MAVIS) emphasizes the importance of real-world learning experience and offers a combination of taught lectures (on Visual Culture, Contemporary Art Practices, Seminar and Research Methods in Practice), tutorials, critiques, seminars, workshops and independent study. It provides students with an opportunity to build and expand their professional networks through a high profile visiting lecturer programme, an annual symposium and two international study trips. Students are also invited to develop work for a research collaboration event, which opens to the public.

During their time on MAVIS, students extend their practice by examining a range of validating contexts within which their work is understood. A key aim of the programme is to ensure that research becomes an intentional rather than an assumed activity and students are encouraged to contextualize rather than theorize their practice. Each year new learning opportunities are explored through international study trips and this year MAVIS students will attend the Istanbul Biennial and will visit Situations, the research and commissioning programme based at the University of the West of England in Bristol.

MAVIS is open to a diverse range of practices, with past and current students working in areas such as public art commissioning, performance, photography, criticism, sculpture, video installation, curating and painting. The programme also provides an opportunity to develop and explore hybrid practices incorporating art-making, writing and curating.

Each student will determine the nature of their own pathway-specific, project work. It is loosely assumed that:

• A student specialising in the art-making pathway will primarily make artworks and consider how and under what circumstances viewers will be asked to see / experience the work. Art-making is not just understood here as the production of objects and images but will also extend to many other types of activity.  
  
• A student specialising in the curation pathway will organise situations where audiences come into contact with artworks of some form or other. Curation is not just the co-ordination and care of exhibits in a gallery and students on this pathway must determine what an appropriate and / or personally relevant curatorial project is.
  
• A student specialising in criticism will primarily create materials (essays, publications, audio recordings, visual essays, documentary projects) that facilitate or promote a relationship between an audience and an artwork or artworks. Criticism is not just the writing of academic texts but can extend to any form of considered mediation | evaluation | education | response to an artwork or an artworld or an art institution.
  

MAVIS Programme team for 2008/2009 includes Amanda Ralph (Programme Co-ordinator), Maeve Connolly, Tessa Giblin and Sarah Pierce.

Visiting lecturers on MAVIS have included Bart De Baere, Dave Beech, David Blamey, Iwona Blazwick, Nicolas Bourriaud, Roger M. Buergel, Gerard Byrne, David Carrier, Justin Carville, Adam Chodzko, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Alex Coles, Valerie Connor, Pip Day, Jeremy Deller, Vivienne Dick, Claire Doherty, James Elkins, Mike Fitzpatrick, Annie Fletcher, Maria Fusco, Liam Gillick, Sarah Glennie, David Godbold, Paul Hedge, Darragh Hogan, John Hutchinson, Jesse Jones, Enrique Juncosa, Fiona Kearney, Jay Koh, Pil & Galia Kollectiv, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, Francis McKee, Dennis McNulty, Leif Magne Tangen, Alice Maher, Raimundas Malašauskas, Julian Myers, Tone Olaf Nielsen, Mike Nelson, Harold Offeh, Paul O’Neill, Aisling Prior, Linda Quinlan, Tim Stott, Anne Tallentire, Anton Vidokle and Grant Watson.

From September 2008, MAVIS is engaged in multiple research collaborations with professional art institutions - an exploration of practice-led research with The LAB, a curatorial research collaboration with Project Arts Centre and an investigation of artistic production with the National Sculpture Factory. 

The programme met regularly in The LAB and worked towards the development of a public event in the gallery in June 2009. The aim of this event was to explore the possibilities presented by The LAB, and the laboratory model, as a setting for practice-led research through experimentation. In May 2009, MAVIS collaborated on a curatorial research initiative, originated and led by Tessa Giblin. This project brought international curators to Dublin to conduct studio visits and participate in a public seminar. An outcome of this initiative is the publication Curatorial Session: Reader – Inquiries into Curatorial Practice to include research by MAVIS students and the invited curators. MAVIS will also begin a dialogue with staff and members of the National Sculpture Factory, in order to investigate the ongoing significance and potential of the factory as a model and site for contemporary art production. This dialogue will explore post-industrial contexts for artistic production in Cork city and beyond, with a particular focus on traditional forms of ‘making’ and these discussions will form the basis for a more extensive collaboration in 2009.

Aims and Objectives

What will I be able to do when I graduate?

Graduates will have an appreciation of the discipline of each of the three strands and will have experienced working directly with colleagues within curation, criticism and art-making. This strategy provides graduates with a significantly enhanced capacity to  extend and deepen the potential of their own  practice whether discretely located within one  of the pathways or working  collaboratively across domain areas. 

What modules will I study?

The programme has three separate pathways: art-making , curation , criticism . Through each pathway students produce self-directed project work (e.g. exhibitions, publications, events, gallery and non-gallery based projects, performance works). The form and nature of the work is determined by each student, in consultation with the teaching team, and distinctions between art-making, curation and criticism are understood to be fluid and not fixed. Work produced by students on the programme may be publicly presented. The work is required to exist within the "real" world not just the familiar classroom, studio or critique situation. It is a part of the student's task to determine what this "real" world situation might be. There is a common set of core modules which includes:

• A lecture series on advanced themes within Visual Cultural Studies
  
• A reading group exploring aspects of Contemporary Art Practices
  
• An interdisciplinary Seminar offering the opportunity for collaboration
  
• Two pathway-specific modules: Critiques, tutorials and lectures on Research Methods in Practice
  
• A pathway-specific Final Project  

Each of these modules will have an assessment submission (such as essay, presentation or project work).   

 

What is the relationship between the three pathways?

The three pathways interact throughout the programme, in the core modules and in the group critiques. These are regular pre-scheduled exchanges between students, teaching team and external visitors. It is envisaged that collaborative and crossover projects may emerge for some students across the pathways  direction through individual projects.

 

 

What are the Entry Requirements?

Applicants must possess an undergraduate qualification of Second Class Honours or higher at BA level.

 

Additional entry requirements are specified for each pathway:

• Curation : applicants should normally possess a BA in a visual art, design or communications area. Typical disciplines include fine art, visual communication, art history, media studies, communications, and interactive design.  
  
• Criticism : applicants should normally possess a BA in a visual art, design, literary, or communications area. Typical disciplines include fine art, visual communication, art history, media studies, communications, and interactive design.  
  
• Art-making : applicants should normally possess a BA in a visual arts discipline. Where there is a demonstrable engagement with contemporary visual art, applicants to all pathways who hold qualifications in arts and humanities or the sciences will also be considered.  

Can I apply if I do not have a BA qualification?

Applicants with professional experience at an advanced level (by which is meant extensive experience of, and achievement in, professional work in the visual arts field) may be considered for admission through Accreditation for Prior and Experiential Learning (APEL) provided they can demonstrate Honours Degree equivalence. An APEL application will provide supporting information to demonstrate the correlation between their experience/professional work to the Level 8 indicators of the National Framework of Qualifications. (http://www.nqai.ie/docs/framework/determinations/determinations.pdf). A framework tool that should be used in a MAVIS APEL application can be downloaded here. 

 

What do I need to include in my application?

Applicants should submit:

(1) a completed application form

(2) a 1000-1500 word project proposal . The proposal should outline a specific project that you are interested in pursuing, if accepted to the MA programme. In addition;

• If you are applying for the criticism pathway you must submit two examples of written work. 
  
• If you are applying for the artmaking pathway you must submit a portfolio of images (maximum 12) of recent work on CD or DVD.
  
• If you are applying for the curation pathway you must submit a 500 word curatorial statement indicating how your project proposal relates to the broader context of contemporary visual arts practice. 

Are there any costs for materials and/or field trips?

External visits are organised in order for students to expand their professional network and broaden their knowledge of the contemporary visual arts context. A minimum of two international study trips will be undertaken by students during the period of study (1 year full time, 2 years part time) and these trips are seen as an integral part of this programme. The cost of each trip is approx. €400 - €600 and students who are in receipt of a grant may be able to secure funding from their grant agency to cover part of this cost.

What are the fees?

In 2010, the fees are €5,750 for full-time students and €2,875 for part-time students per annum.

 

What is the closing date?

Commencement in January 2011

Application form, project proposal and all supporting materials must be submitted to IADT's Admissions Office:

• EU applicants: 24th September 2010
  
• Non-EU applicants: 28th May 2010 . This earlier deadline is to facilitate the processing of visa applications by successful Non-EU applicants, who may require student visas in order to attend the programme. Referees must also return completed reference forms by these dates. 
  

More information on this programme on www.mavis.ie

Download application form here or contact our Admissions Office on admissions@iadt.ie / (01) 239 4621