MA Contemporary Art Practice
London, United Kingdom
DURATION
1 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
13 Jan 2025*
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
Request tuition fees
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* As the RCA received a high number of applications we encourage you to apply as early as possible to secure your place on your programme.
* visit the RCA website to find out about fees for this programme as well as scholarship and funding opportunities
Online Open Days
Join our online open days from 23-27 September to find out more about our postgraduate programmes.
Introduction
Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) at the Royal College of Art is a cutting-edge MA program 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 program supports the development of your art practice within a responsive, dialogical, and critical context with an emphasis on wider political issues – interrogating art production about urgent socio-political contexts as well as questioning and redefining practice.
CAP supports ambitious, exploratory, and research-driven artists, with program specialisms in critical, speculative, and social art practices, moving images, performance, writing, and techno aesthetics.
Our approach to Contemporary Art Practice is not determined by either technology or material, and CAP students create work using any media possible: from images, installations, and moving image works, to publications and sonic art, participatory events, 3D modeling and VR, writing, and performance. The program offers a flexible environment that supports collective and peer-led learning.
How will I learn?
The MA in Contemporary Art Practice offers a discursive environment in which to discuss contemporary issues for thinking about, making, and presenting contemporary art supported by individual tutorials, group critiques, lectures, seminars, and workshops that take place across the year. Units are tailored to nurture the development of your art practice from the earliest manifestations of ideas through to platforms for exhibition and making public, whilst also providing the skills required to be able to situate your practice within current dialogues and debates. Supported individual learning is complemented by generative workshops collaborative events and exhibitions, with critical feedback offered throughout the degree from world-leading contemporary artists, writers, and curators.
The MA in Contemporary Art Practice is premised on an understanding that artists, makers, writers, curators, critics, and historians today are concerned with the function, contribution, and work of the artist and art’s potential to reflect upon and intervene in the world. CAP research clusters, reading groups, collaborations, group crits, generative workshops, and seminars interconnect with one-to-one tutorials and technical support as well as the School and College-wide teaching units to create an innovative, dynamic, and responsive habitat for new approaches to thinking, making and exhibition of contemporary art practices.
Meet the RCA
We host a range of online and on-campus open days as well as recruitment events in cities around the world. These events can include 1-to-1 meetings and portfolio advice, informal chats, presentations and sessions with staff, students and alumni.
Check the Check the RCA event webpage for details of upcoming events including events in India and the USA.
Admissions
Curriculum
Programme structure
The programme is delivered across three terms and includes a combination of programme, School and College units.
Term 1
The Situating Contemporary Art Practice unit provides the practical and theoretical foundations of the degree. A series of programme lectures, technical and generative workshops and seminars, individual tutorials and group critiques will support you in artwork production and experimentation, helping you to position and situate your practice within contemporary dialogues and debates.
Across Terms 1 and 2, you will participate in AcrossRCA, the College-wide unit. See below for more details.
Term 2
The Demonstrating Contemporary Art Practice unit engages with modes of making public and with collaborative practices. You will have the opportunity to expand professional networks and engage with sites and contexts of art production and reception. You will be supported in your learning through individual and group tutorials, lectures, workshops and reading groups. You will also have the opportunity to collaborate with peers across all aspects of planning and exhibition of a series of public projects and events involving external partners and deliver a presentation of your work with feedback from leading professionals in contemporary art practice.
In term 2 all School of Arts & Humanities students will participate in the Urgency of the Arts, a School-wide unit. Through this unit, we ask: what do 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 recognise its many potentially unintended readings and consequences.
Term 3
The Independent Research Project at producing a final artwork for presentation in a public exhibition. You will be supported through individual and group tutorials and one-to-one technical support, alongside a series of programme-specific and School-wide professional practice lectures and workshops, with critical feedback on your work via an external group of arts professionals.
Rankings
The Royal College of Art has been ranked the number 1 university for art & design internationally for the 9th consecutive year, according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023 – the largest world-wide survey of academic and industry opinion.
Scholarships and Funding
House of Fraser Bursary
Supporting students in any MA programme from the UK (Preferably Scottish nationals), experiencing financial hardship
Eligible Programmes: Architecture MA, Interior Design MA, City Design MA, Environmental Architecture MA, Ceramics & Glass MA, Contemporary Art Practice MA, Curating Contemporary Art MA, V&A/RCA History of Design MA, Jewellery & Metal MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA, Writing MA, Animation MA, Digital Direction MA, Information Experience Design MA, Visual Communication MA, Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA
Funding Categories: Financial hardship, Full time, Student preferably of Scottish origin
Eligible fee status: UK fee status
Value: £10,000
Leverhulme Arts Scholarship
Supporting MA Sculpture, Painting, Contemporary Art Practice, Print and Photography students experiencing financial hardship
Eligible Programmes: Contemporary Art Practice MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA
Funding Categories: Financial hardship, Full time
Eligible fee status: UK fee status
Value: Up to seven full tuition fee scholarships for new students
Rose Finn-Kelcey Bursary
Supporting Sculpture, Painting, Contemporary Art Practice, Print and Photography MA students.
Eligible Programmes: Contemporary Art Practice MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA
Funding Categories: Full time
Eligible fee status: Any
Value: A tuition fee bursary of £5,000
Sir Frank Bowling Scholarships
The Scholarship supports 21 UK MA, MRes and PhD students every year from across all RCA MA, MRes and PhD disciplines.
Eligible Programmes: Architecture MA, Interior Design MA, City Design MA, Environmental Architecture MA, Architecture Pathway MRes RCA, Architecture MPhil/PhD, Ceramics & Glass MA, Contemporary Art Practice MA, Curating Contemporary Art MA, V&A/RCA History of Design MA, Jewellery & Metal MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA, Writing MA, Fine Arts & Humanities Pathway MRes RCA, Arts & Humanities MPhil/PhD, Animation MA, Digital Direction MA, Information Experience Design MA, Visual Communication MA, Communication Design Pathway MRes RCA, Communication MPhil/PhD, Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA, Design Pathway MRes RCA, Design MPhil/PhD, Healthcare & Design MRes, Intelligent Mobility MPhil/PhD, Materials Science MPhil/PhD, Computer Science MPhil/PhD
Funding Categories: Financial hardship, Students with Black African and Caribbean diaspora heritage, or mixed Black African and Caribbean diaspora heritage
Eligible fee status: UK fee status
Value: £21,000
The Tony Snowdon Scholarship
Applicants must make an application via the application portal on the Snowdon Trust website from Jan 2023: https://www.snowdontrust.org/scholarships
Eligible Programmes: Architecture MA, Interior Design MA, City Design MA, Environmental Architecture MA, Architecture Pathway MRes RCA, Ceramics & Glass MA, Contemporary Art Practice MA, Curating Contemporary Art MA, V&A/RCA History of Design MA, Jewellery & Metal MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA, Writing MA, Fine Arts & Humanities Pathway MRes RCA, Animation MA, Digital Direction MA, Information Experience Design MA, Visual Communication MA, Communication Design Pathway MRes RCA, Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA, Design Pathway MRes RCA, Healthcare & Design MRes
Funding Categories: Financial hardship, Students with a diagnosed physical or sensory disability
Eligible fee status: Any
Value: Up to £15,000 in tuition fees + £15,000 maintenance support