MA Craft & Material Practices

Overview

MA Craft & Material Practices at Arts University Plymouth is a course that takes craft as a starting point rather than a destination. Steeped in tacit knowledge that is often transmitted through hands-on skills and customs, you will be guided in material-led research processes in clay, glass, wood, biomaterials, metals, fibre or other materials that lead to personal discovery and future-oriented, contemporary professional practice.

Made@EU artist-in-residence Adriana Ionascu works in our on-site digital fabrication suite, Fab Lab Plymouth.

Through instruction that takes place in our spacious, highly-resourced material labs, workshops and studios, you will be encouraged to expand your knowledge of materials and traditional methods of making into new territories of practice open to alternative materials, conceptual frameworks and cross-sector understanding of how materially-led innovation is shaping the world.

Vortex Whiskey Tumblers, Laura Quinn

Your creative study will bring you into contact with the ideas and professional practices of artisans, artists, designers, materials researchers, product designers, urban planners, architects and others who are working directly with the behaviour and potential of materials in both expressive and applied design. You will have access to specialist studios and resources in hot glass, kiln formed glass, ceramics, 3D clay printing, biomaterials, wood working, small metals, as well as to the digital tools within Fab Lab Plymouth, which is part of the global Fab Lab network focused on digital and distributed fabrication.

Plymouth College of Art Contemporary Craft Studios 2

Your materials exploration is guided by the interdisciplinary structure of the postgraduate course, where you will share a common series of units with postgraduate students in other disciplines for critiques, seminars, research intensives, external site visits and lectures. Specialist instruction in craft and other material practices is taught through smaller seminars where you will concentrate on contemporary ideas and models of practice which will broaden your understanding of craft to see its relationship to current debates in art theory, design thinking, materials science and engineering, social or community-based making, climate change, and sustainability.

You will have the opportunity to develop your ideas through placements and funded opportunities for learning by applying your material skills in specific contexts, including your participation in a Research Intensives programme that will provide the means to see craft as a tangible form of creative, technical or material research.

Photograph of biomaterials created by Arts University Plymouth MA Student Natalia Lombardi

Your MA study of craft will benefit from an opportunity to participate in the university’s Making Futures Research Group (MFRG), which examines how traditional cultures of making might exist in future contexts through the use of emerging practices, materials and technologies. The MFRG is a coalition of postgraduate students and academic faculty linked to Making Futures®, our international research platform which seeks to situate material cultures and material knowledge at the centre of the many critical issues facing global consumer society, including how we might move beyond mass consumption towards an inclusive, regenerative economy capable of supporting social well-being and enabling more resilient communities. We are committed to developing ethical, sustainable design practices as outlined in our <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/strategic-plan">Strategic Vision</a> and this ethos is embedded in all MA courses.

Crafts student Renovat Moody takes us on a tour through the university's breathtaking glass workshop.

Why choose MA Craft & Material Practices at Arts University Plymouth?

We place you at the crossroad of material traditions and futures. Craft is an expanding area of practice that encompasses both time honoured heritage processes and an exciting exploration of new material applications across a range of diverse disciplines and industries. Our MA Craft & Material Practices places you at the overlap of these creative forces to consider where you can imagine new, unrealised forms and practices. A proactive, Interdisciplinary community. New ideas and material practices do not develop in isolation. You come to university to be challenged, supported and to take risks in a context that will inspire you to innovate and understand craft as an active process of inquiry into material behaviours, possibilities and interdisciplinary forms. The course encourages conceptual exploration and transformation whether you are a jeweller, woodworker, biomaterial designer or ceramicist. Accelerated personal development through guided, practice-led research. We believe craft is a starting point rather than a destination. As a practice steeped in tacit knowledge that is often transmitted through hands-on skills and customs, the power of the direct creativity that it offers is aligned to your personal transformation. You will be trained to carry out material-led research processes in clay, glass, wood, biomaterials, metals, fibre and other materials that lead to personal discovery and future-oriented, contemporary professional options. World-class workshops and facilities: During your time on the course, you will have access to one of the most diverse and spacious ecosystems of workshops, studios and labs known in a contemporary art and design school. Based primarily in our Materials Lab, you are immersed in facilities that allow you to hone your existing skills and be introduced to novel processes. Our approach is to support the full range of analogue and digital processes where you can play and experiment with where the material meets the technological in your practice. Sustainable ethos and specialist knowledge: Part of the value of craft and materially-led creative practice is the fact that many traditional methods and techniques take into account the cycles, ecology and biodiversity of nature. Built into our craft course is an emphasis on the sustainable, non-extractive and regenerative approaches to working with materials, which not only provides a meaningful link between the past and the future, but puts you at the forefront of knowing the alternative ways of making that support new, more sustainable industries and give rise to material innovations that better serve the environment and planet.

Alumni Discount

Arts University Plymouth graduates are offered a discount of 15% on Masters programme fees, regardless of when they studied with us previously. The discount applies if you studied on one of our pre-degree, foundation or undergraduate programmes.

Entry Requirements

MA applicants are normally expected to have an undergraduate degree at 2:2 or above. However, the strength of your creative practice and other forms of experience will be taken into account at the interview stage and we encourage you to start a conversation with us.

What should my portfolio include?

Your portfolio should give us an indication of the work that you have made, organised or been involved in. For our postgraduate arts, craft and design courses, we expect to see examples of work you have created. For our MA by Research and MA Museum Studies courses, we don't expect you to have traditional artworks; instead you can share examples of projects you have worked on, classroom experiences you have created, and so on. Please ensure that your portfolio includes descriptions, website links and visuals if they are available.