Study at the Royal College of Art
London, United Kingdom
| Programme details | |
|---|---|
| Degree: | Master of Arts (MA) |
| Discipline: |
Photography
|
| Duration: | 12 months |
| ECTS points: | 180 |
| Study modes: | full-time |
| Delivery modes: | on-campus |
| University website: | Photography |
| Annual tuition (EEA) | ca. 328,900 HKD University currency: 33,600 GBP |
| Annual tuition (non-EEA) | ca. 328,900 HKD University currency: 33,600 GBP This applies to citizens of Hong Kong |
Request information from the Royal College of Art
Productive fluidity. An expanded and interdisciplinary art practice with no fixed identity.
Photography plays a crucial role in contemporary art. The MA Photography programme at the RCA aims to provide a critical and educational environment in which you can develop as an artist with photography at the core of your practice. We have a fluid approach to image making. Whether still or moving, analogue or digital, the photographic image is, for us, thoughtful as well as playful: an allegorical and thoroughly visual form.
The programme understands photography as a discourse that encompasses and extends across multiple practices. This disregard for a fixed essence is photography’s strength: no aesthetic purity but a range of rhetorical forms used for the creation of fact, fiction and fantasy. Equally the boundary between the still and the moving image is fluid and porous, enabling new forms of image making to be created and disseminated.
An informed practice of photography acknowledges the heterogeneous traditions of fine art and visual culture. It engages with practices of reading and writing about the image. On the programme, theory and practice inform each other and this dialogue characterises your committed study at postgraduate level. The MA Photography programme is within the School of Arts & Humanities and relates to studio practices and theories of contemporary art, rather than to media and communication studies.
Please note all applications must be submitted by 12 noon on the given deadline.
The programme is delivered across three terms and includes a combination of programme, School and College units.
Term 1
The Situating Photography: Practice and Discourse orientates you through resource inductions and workshops. You will be introduced to the programme community in student and staff presentations.
Across Terms 1 and 2, you will participate in AcrossRCA, the College-wide unit. See below for more details.
Term 2
The Making Public unit situates photography as an expanded and expanding field in contemporary art. Particular attention is placed on the materiality and performativity of the image.
In term 2 all School of Arts & Humanities students will participate in the Urgency of the Arts, School-wide unit. Through this unit we ask: what does arts and humanities research and practice have to offer in our current socio-political climate? The unit introduces students to a diverse range of perspectives, approaches and practices relevant to contemporary practice and thought in the Arts & Humanities. The delivery is devised to help you identify and query your own practices and disciplinary assumptions through encounters with others and within the various practices undertaken by students in the School, and to raise awareness around contemporary concerns. You will be supported in understanding the ramifications of your own work and practice within a broad cultural context, and to recognise its many potentially unintended readings and consequences.
Term 3
Independent Research Project
The Independent Research Project takes three parts. In Part A: Independent practice you will explore ways to make your independent project public, working towards an exhibition of your artwork. You work autonomously towards an understanding of practice-led methodologies, critical reflection and exhibition.
In Part B: Public Exhibition you will come together to make an exhibition exploring the practical and conceptual implications of staging, making public, and working in conjunction with others. The making of the exhibition is a reflexive site for innovation and development. A viva voce takes place in the exhibition when you will present your work to a panel of Personal and Senior Tutors. After this, the exhibition opens to the public.
Part C: Professional Practice takes place after the exhibition as a programme of professional practice seminars that will be predominantly staffed by arts professionals. These seminars provide a context to explore ideas of reception, dissemination and professional identity. Towards the end of the unit, using skills gained from the professional practice seminars, you will consolidate the work presented in your exhibition and work towards developing a digital platform or a small print publication. This can be done independently or in collaboration and will establish your professional identity supporting the further dissemination of your practice beyond the institution.
The School of Arts & Humanities is located across our Battersea and Kensington sites.
All full-time students on fine or applied arts programmes are provided with studios or workspace, and access to specialist workshops. There are a number of bookable seminar and project spaces across the site available to all Arts & Humanities students.
To provide prospective students with opportunities to find out about the RCA experience and programmes we run a number of on-campus and online open days as well as events in various countries around the world. You can find out about upcoming events or watch replays of past open days on
Find more information on the website of the Royal College of Art: