MA Visual Culture
1 year (48 weeks) full time or 2 years part time (96 weeks)
Top facts
- Specialist tutorial support from research staff across the Manchester Institute for Research in Art and Design (MIRIAD) research structure and from the teaching staff on the History of Art and Design degree within the School of Art and Design.
- Supported by a large library collection relevant to the study of visual culture.
- Links to MIRIAD based research groups, including: Location, Memory and the Visual Research Group; Images, Narratives and Cultures Research Group; and Archives, Collections and Objects Research Networks. These links enable access to relevant research seminars, conferences and symposia in visual culture.
- Assists you to develop critical academic work, as well as work involving a combination of written theory and visual practice in the interdisciplinary context of the wider MA programme.
You will study
MA Visual Culture is an interdisciplinary programme that explores the meanings and effects of visual images and ways of looking. Students examine the status of the visual in a society saturated with visual technologies, and the aim is to interrogate the ways visual images contribute to the formation of identities and social environments.
The MA encourages critical and creative engagement with academic and intellectual ideas relevant to the study of visual culture. It provides opportunities for the production of academic writing and research, as well as possibilities to develop critical thinking through visual practice.
The programme is a taught route, with core elements and a series of route specific 'Practice Support' seminars. It encourages a high degree of independent research culminating in a dissertation, or a project combining written and visual material.
The MA also involves a group based 'visual archive' project that encourages a creative and practical engagement with visual knowledge and memory.
There are also opportunities for applicants interested in relationships between visual culture, fine art and anthropology; the visualization of political and military conflict; art and post-coloniality; feminism and Irish visual culture.
Assessment
Through learning agreements, evidence of practice, learning record and presentation.
Graduates
This course can lead to PhD study and careers in higher and further education, arts administration and the cultural industries. Previous graduates have become university lecturers and worked in areas of arts education, for example, at the British Film Institute and the Cornerhouse, Manchester, as well as continuing with art and design based studio practices.
Location
All Saints Campus, Manchester
Staff Research Interests
- Dr Simon Faulkner - mid-twentieth century art, visual culture and memory, and relationships between visual culture and political/military conflict, with particular emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
- Dr Patricia Allmer - surrealism and twentieth century art theory.
- Professor Jim Aulich - visualization of political and military conflict.
- Fionna Barber - feminism and Irish visual culture.
- Dr Amanda Ravetz - intersections between fine art practice and visual anthropology.
Fees
UK and EU students full-time £4,500
UK and EU students part-time £250 per 10 credit unit. A Masters qualification typically comprises 180 credits.
Non-EU overseas students £12,500
Entry Requirements
You will normally have an appropriate undergraduate honours degree or postgraduate diploma, or a degree equivalent professional qualification. Alternatively, you may be admitted if you have proven experience in a relevant field, or can demonstrate appropriate knowledge and skills at honours degree standard.
How to Apply
More Information
Route Leader
Dr Simon Faulkner
Senior Lecturer, Department of History of Art and Design
