Discover MFA Arts & Humanities transcript
Experience the collaborative nature of the MFA Arts & Humanities as you work alongside writers, filmmakers, performers, artists and curators. Expand your thinking through external speakers from a range of backgrounds, such as contemporary artists, filmmakers, architects, authors, historians, curators, economists, and performers.
Watch the video on the MFA Arts & Humanities webpage.
Transcript
[Text: MFA Arts & Humanities]
[0:05] [Text: Dr Adam Kaasa, Co-lead MFA Arts & Humanities]
Adam: The MFA in Arts & Humanities at the RCA is a unique course. It is interdisciplinary, it's collaborative, it's research-led and it's public-facing.
We come from teaching across contemporary art or photography, we have practices in printmaking or sculpture or public artworks or performance, and we all coalesce here on the programme with that breadth of interests and connect you to our research in insightful ways.
[0:33] On the MFA, we have Cross-College Electives. So these are option courses you can choose from the School of Architecture, from the School of Design, from Fashion, from the School of Communication. You can access faculty, you'll rub shoulders with students on other programmes and you'll get to build a global community to leave the RCA with.
[0:54] [Text: Dr Shehnaz Suterwalla, Senior Tutor (Research), School of Arts & Humanities]
Shehnaz: The MFA lectures run throughout the academic year and in each session, we welcome leading practitioners from the fields of Arts & Humanities to come and talk about their practice and by being in conversation with them, the lectures expose you to different methods of working, different thematic concerns and priorities, and different practices as ways of enriching how you might think about your own.
[1:22] One of the most unique things about the RCA is its global-facing perspective, and the fact that it is incredibly transnational, not only in terms of the people who come here, but also in terms of the ideas that circulate. And being in London helps because obviously it's a really metropolitan centre. And it allows for culture to sweep in and out of the academy. And so as much as this is a place to study, it's also a place to meet, to network, to learn from each other, and to be in close proximity to perhaps people that you've admired for a really long time and wouldn't necessarily otherwise get to meet, which can be quite a highlight.
[2:03] [Text: Dr Jess Potter, Tutor (Research) MFA Arts & Humanities]
Jess: The live projects are a really exciting central part of the MFA. It provides an opportunity for students to work collaboratively on a project that is then delivered in a public-facing setting. The Riverside Walk unlocks previously inaccessible riverside spaces. And so we've all students to engage with that site and activate it collectively through different kinds of interventions, which have produced a range of really exciting outcomes, from public performances to sculptures to events.
Another partner that we work with and the live unit, which is a really exciting part of our programme here, is the Kent Downs National Landscapes. It's a great opportunity to work in biodiverse habitats and engage with the connection between urban and rural spaces across the channel, also to France.
[2:55]
Adam: The programme is designed to enable students to direct their own learning. We expect students to come here already with a practice established and developed, already with conceptual ideas that they want to test and be challenged on by the staff and the students they’re going to meet. And what we do here is hold a space and give an infrastructure for learning that enables that testing and that challenging of practices, of ideas, of concepts to take place.