Striking aerial photography by Tim Gundry

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Arts University Plymouth is an independent specialist university run by artists and designers for artists and designers, widely regarded as a dynamic catalyst for creative learning and social justice.

Arts University Plymouth

Our MA Photography programme acts as a platform to help develop your creative and professional practice, providing access to our specialist photographic facilities.

MA Photography Programme

Our MA Photography programme acts as a platform to help develop your creative and professional practice, providing access to our specialist photographic…

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Arts University Plymouth is an independent art university established in 1856, offering extended diplomas, BA degrees, masters and more in art, design and digital subjects.

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Full Time

Part Time

Photography

Practice-led Research Methods introduces you to an exploration and expansion of your research practice including practice-led and practice-based methodologies. Through the unit you will develop a critical framework and network of professional and intellectual support for your emergent practice through cross disciplinary lectures, seminars, subject tutorials and technical workshops.
The unit introduces the interdisciplinary context in which to test and refine your work towards developing a rigorous research practice. Through engagement with the Unit you will gain an introduction to Masters’ level research methodologies aimed at deepening your understanding and skills.
The Unit will identify strengths and weaknesses in your research trajectory, interrogating assumptions and exploring hypotheses through a process of making and/or written research. You will be encouraged to build a reflective dialogue with your work, while documenting your critical engagement with experimental approaches, methods and techniques and with appropriate theoretical frameworks. You will develop a body of research identifying the potential issues and challenges in your specialism/field, establishing a robust understanding of current cultural, environmental and ethical discourse. 
The core delivery will be cross-disciplinary; focused on themes that are relevant to all MA awards. Seminar groups will interrogate these themes in relation to your area of practice and specific research concerns, as well as supporting you in the process of identifying networks, debates and institutional frameworks in which your practice might best be situated.
Unit 701 serves as a catalyst for the development of critical frameworks, peer support and rigorous research practices. Tailored to the specific needs and themes of each subject area, the unit provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary foundation for you to navigate the complexities of your research and practice.
<a href="https://pca.objects.frb.io/production/files/courses/2025-MA-Course-Specs-and-Unit-Specs-CUF/Arts-University-Plymouth-Postgraduate-701-Practice-Led-Research-Methods-USF.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Click here to read the full Unit Specification Form for Unit 701</a>

Unit 702 Creative &amp; Critical Development provides a means for you to put your research into action through participation in a programme of Research Intensives that expand your knowledge and understanding of your subject. Led by the University’s research-active academic staff and invited external subject and industry experts, these Research Intensives provide a means for you to investigate distinct territories of knowledge and practice that require you to view your practice through an unfamiliar or speculative lens. Through learning new theories, discourses and skills, and being supported to understand how these impact your existing practice and assumptions, this Unit encourages original and emergent thinking and provides time for synthesising this thinking and learning during a period of practical realisation.
You are asked to engage with the Research Intensives programme, guided by the research question you have identified at the end of Unit 701. The topics of these Research Intensives, which will range from theoretical and cultural to technical, provide a rich, evolving programme of content through which you can engage the most urgent issues and challenges of contemporary society through practice.
To support your learning through these divergent topics and approaches to creative practice, Unit 702 will be unified by a postgraduate seminar that provides a format for negotiating the space between your studio practice or projects and the incorporation of the new knowledge gained by your exposure to a range of ideas, theories and techniques.
The outcome of this Unit is a developed portfolio of work informed by the selected Research Intensives and contextualised through a written project proposal for an Independent Final Project in Unit 703.
<a href="https://pca.objects.frb.io/production/files/courses/2025-MA-Course-Specs-and-Unit-Specs-CUF/Arts-University-Plymouth-Postgraduate-702-Creative-Critical-Development-USF.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Click here to read the full Unit Specification Form for Unit 702</a>

Unit 703 is the culmination of your MA level creative studies and demonstrates the central ideas, concepts and practical skills you have developed and discovered in the course. The Unit is designed to facilitate a resolution of creative research and practice-based work undertaken by providing you a platform of support for executing your Project Proposal through personalised, subject-specific tutorials and industry-led lectures leading to the professional exhibition and/or publication of your Independent Final Project (IFP).
In a development process that increases your work’s readiness for the public display to an audience of professional peers, you are guided to identify and secure a discipline-specific external partner, organisation or site for the final exhibition or publication of your work (which can be either physical or theoretical). Your Independent Final Project (IFP) will be negotiated with the Unit Leader and Postgraduate Course Leader.
The Unit is led by your self-defined research trajectory and ongoing practice but is supported through regular lectures, individual tutorials, practitioner mentoring, external trips and cognate group seminars which encourage an evolution in the orientation of the work that moves from experimentation to professionalisation, preparing you with the skills necessary for communicating creative ideas with real world impact.
Depending upon the research trajectory undertaken, and through negotiation with your Unit Leader and Subject Tutor, successful completion of Unit 703 requires that you demonstrate evidence of advanced technical, conceptual, theoretical comprehension of your subject and are capable of sustained, self-directed and original research in practice-led and/or written modes of thinking. The Unit offers the opportunity to realise and externalise a primary idea which has emerged through an extended period of studio experimentation, prototyping, writing or design development.
The planning and execution of your IFP will be supported by a subject group seminar which addresses the discipline-specific skills necessary to the publication and dissemination of creative work, including: methods for ethical social engagement and community-based work; requirements for entrepreneurship and small business; tools and guidance for creative activism and intervention into creative policy; skills for engaging with social media and for developing collaborative networks and other related topics aimed to bridge your MA study with your professional career aspirations or further study.
<a href="https://pca.objects.frb.io/production/files/courses/2025-MA-Course-Specs-and-Unit-Specs-CUF/Arts-University-Plymouth-Postgraduate-703-Independent-Final-Project-USF.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Click here to read the full Unit Specification Form for Unit 703</a>

The comprehensive Masters structure, which is shared across our specialist programmes, enables our postgraduate students to focus on creative strategies and processes through three sequential modules which support you in investigating, testing and developing your ideas. The core tuition focuses on training, research methodology, critical thinking, design, practice-led research methods and professional and conceptual frameworks, with an opportunity for negotiated study under specialist supervision for MFA and MA by Research students. All of our programmes have access to outstanding workshop facilities in the university.
By combining modules with specialist assignments and personal project proposals, you will be able to achieve depth and specialisation within your subject area, while at the same time becoming equipped with robust approaches, methodologies and techniques that can be applied across the commercial, social and public sectors.
All students are asked to submit an initial statement on application to the course. This sets out your ideas for the MA or MFA programme you have selected. Creative practice is about change and development, and this statement will form the starting point for a dialogue about your work. 
Take a look at the full course information within our <a href="https://pca.objects.frb.io/production/files/courses/2025-MA-Course-Specs-and-Unit-Specs-CUF/Arts-University-Plymouth-Postgraduate-Unit-Specification-Forms-2024-25.pdf">Unit Specification</a> and our <a href="https://pca.objects.frb.io/production/files/courses/2025-MA-Course-Specs-and-Unit-Specs-CUF/Arts-University-Plymouth-Postgraduate-Course-Specification-form-2024-25.pdf">Programme Specification</a> documents.

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