MA Glass

Overview

MA Glass is a unique degree focused on the history, creative practice and culture of glass as a material. Based primarily in our world-class, state-of-the-art hot glass and kiln-formed glass studios, you will be immersed in the study of traditional and contemporary applications of this specialist craft.

Steeped in a rich and multi-cultural history of material discovery and the evolution of methodologies of practice over centuries, this course provides you with the opportunity to focus on learning the vast bodies of knowledge and techniques for making glass. As a substance that is used in nearly every sector of life, including architecture, product design, digital devices and screens, scientific lenses, automotive design, interior design, solar energy, and fibre optics, you will be taught the fundamental properties and behaviours of glass and how it came to be developed as a material of significant utility and revered for unparalleled beauty. Learning its history and many applications will open up your individual pathway of practice-led research into how glass might be reimagined or innovatively applied in a contemporary context. As a student of the course you will have access to our newly installed electric furnace for hot glass—one of only a small number of electrically-powered furnaces in the UK—as well as to adjacent hot glass glory-holes, kilns and a glass forming workshop that includes a suite of machines for grinding, shaping and polishing your poured or blown glass forms. The hot glass studio includes three blowing benches, where you will explore the traditional method of working with molten transparent and coloured glass, shaping it by blowing and hot forming it with tools.

Balance 2, Laura Quinn, MA Glass

Your study will include your ability to focus on a wide range of methods from traditional glass blowing, stained glass, and kiln forming, to the exploration of more contemporary ideas for glass through the use of 3D moulds and waterjet cutting glass patterns informed by digital modelling and 3D scanning technologies. Adjacent to our FabLab, you can work seamlessly between ancient techniques and the latest digital fabrication technologies, offering you unparalleled opportunity to unite time-honoured glass processes with innovative methods for creating with glass at object or architectural scale, as well as for combining glass with other materials.

Our commitment to sustainable creative practices teaches you techniques and theories within an environmentally mindful community of practitioners who are developing new ways of working with recycled glass, seaweed based ash, and other place-based and regenerative modes of practice that are the future of the discipline. MA Glass is a course that benefits from being linked to the university’s <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/research/research-groups">Making Futures Research Group</a> (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 staff linked to Making Futures®, our international research platform that situates 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.

Why choose MA Glass at Arts University Plymouth?

We place you at the crossroad of material traditions and futures. Glass 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 Glass course places you at the overlap of these creative forces to consider where you can imagine new, unrealised forms and practices. A pro-active, 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. Glass as an active process of inquiry into material behaviours, possibilities and interdisciplinary forms. The course encourages conceptual exploration and transformation in whatever direction you take your research as a Glass artist. Accelerated personal development through guided, practice-led research. We believe glass is a material with unparalleled potential to bridge ancient and contemporary knowledge. As a practice steeped in tacit knowledge that is often transmitted through hands-on skills and customs, the power of the direct creativity that the study of glass offers is aligned to your personal transformation. You will be trained to carry out material-led research processes 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 MA Glass 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.