Overview
Sculpture encompassing, installation, object-making, moving image, sound, social and public practices.
Key details
- 180 credits
- 1 year / 45 week programme
- Full-time study
School or Centre
Location
- Battersea
Next open event
- 1 Feb 2025
- Visit Open Day
Round 1 application deadline
- 13 Jan 2025
A critical environment in which to explore contemporary issues through the making of sculpture.
Sculpture at the RCA spans object-making, public art and performance, alongside works in other mediums. Rather than focusing solely on Sculpture’s manifestations, we see the discipline as a method for advancing the production of art.
Join a Master’s programme that encourages diverse, experimental approaches. We encourage you to take a critical, reflexive approach in your work and give you the knowledge to situate your practice within contemporary social, political and economic contexts.
Our team of highly regarded teaching staff and guest lecturers highlight the value of research and experimentation to an artistic practice. You’ll be part of a collaborative and interdisciplinary community looking to innovate with technology and imagine new spaces and materials.
Catch the replays from our latest online Open Day.
Gallery
Staff
Facilities
The School of Arts & Humanities is located across our Battersea and Kensington sites.
View all facilitiesAll full-time students on fine or applied arts programmes are provided with studios or workspace, and access to specialist workshops. There are a number of bookable seminar and project spaces across the site available to all Arts & Humanities students.
Our alumni
Our alumni form an international network of creative individuals who have shaped and continue to shape the world. Click on each name to find out more.
Where will the RCA take you?More details on what you'll study.
Find out what you'll cover in this programme.
What you'll cover
Programme structure
Term 1
Sites and Situations (45 credits)
Within this orientation unit you will be provided with the practical and theoretical tools of the programme. Teaching and learning happens within your studio time and workshop time, with regular project space presentations of work, and in group sessions, personal tutorials, critiques, and panel talks. Our lecture series is designed to expand your understanding and knowledge of the creative ecology begins in early in the unit. Sites and Situations culminates in ‘festus’ a collaborative dialogical off-site making, festival of ideas. In Sites and Situations you are supported to identify the intention of your practice, its context and relation to site and context. The unit embeds our central notion of thinking through making and helps you position your work within the current dialogues and debates of contemporary art.
Terms 1&2
AcrossRCA (Cross-College unit) (30 credits)
Across terms 1 and 2, you will participate in AcrossRCA. This unit aims to support you to meet the challenges of a complex, uncertain and changing world by bringing you together to work collaboratively in cross-programme interdisciplinary teams. In your team you will develop a self- initiated themed project, informed by expertise within and beyond the College. These projects will challenge you to collectively use your intellect and imagination to address key cultural, social, environmental and economic challenges. In doing so, you will develop and reflect on the abilities required to translate knowledge into action, and help demonstrate the contribution that the creative arts can make to our understanding and experience of the world.
Term 2
The Expanded Field (30 credits)
This unit encourages the development of your individual, innovative studio practice, and asks you to consider your practice within the wider matrix of professional and peer relationships, contextual and intellectual positions. Teaching inputs in The Expanded Field include our lecture series, which is designed to expand your understanding and knowledge of the creative ecology. The Expanded Field supports you in identifying the future direction of your practice, its relation to materiality/immateriality, and its potentials for dissemination across various platforms. You will be supported in your learning through individual and group tutorials, the lecture series, workshops and group sessions.
Urgency of the Arts (School Unit) (15 credits)
In term 2, School of Arts & Humanities Master’s students will participate in a School-wide unit called "The Urgency of the Arts." In this unit we ask how arts and humanities research and practice can engage with our current socio-political climate, and how might it shape, be necessary and essential in contemporary cultural debates.
The unit introduces you to a diverse range of perspectives, approaches and methods relevant to contemporary practice and thought in the arts and humanities. The delivery, predominantly based on workshops and featuring specialist presentations by leading artists, aims to assist you in recognising, questioning, expanding, and reevaluating your own artistic practices and disciplinary assumptions. Through interactions with staff and students from across the School, as well as through a variety of methodological approaches, you will develop an understanding of the contemporary concerns that shape and influence artistic practice. You will be encouraged to reflect on these as a means to articulate the potential of your own work within the context of broad cultural landscapes and urgent cultural debates.
Term 3
Independent Research Project (60 credits)
The 60-credit Independent Research Project (IRP) is an opportunity to build a body of work that addresses the key ambitions of your research and practice. You will work towards presenting a work or works in the IRP Public Exhibition, which enables you to explore how you can activate your work in a public context, experiment with the most appropriate forms of realising your ideas and gain critical feedback from a group of external arts professionals. The IRP Public Exhibition takes place as part of the unit, and is followed by a period of reflection and further development, which emphasises dissemination of your work over dematerialised platforms, planning for continued practice and research post-graduation.
You will be supported through individual and group tutorials and one-to-one technical support, alongside a series of programme specific and School-wide professional practice and alumni lectures. You will be supported in understanding the possibilities, complexities and impacts of your own work. You will be encouraged to contextualise your work within broad cultural landscapes to recognise and emphasise its potential and the complex ways in which your work may be received and understood. The production of your Portfolio of Practice and its delivery in the Presentation of Practice concludes the IRP.
This MA is delivered over 45 weeks.
AcrossRCA
AcrossRCA is a compulsory 30-credit unit which is delivered as part of all MA programmes.
Situated at the core of your RCA experience, this ambitious interdisciplinary College-wide unit supports you in responding to the challenges of complex, uncertain and changing physical and digital worlds. Developed in response to student feedback, AcrossRCA creates an exciting opportunity for you to collaborate meaningfully across programmes.
Challenging you to use your imagination and intellect to respond to urgent contemporary themes, this ambitious unit will provide you with the opportunity to:
- make connections across disciplines
- think critically about your creative practice
- develop creative networks within and beyond the College
- generate innovative responses to complex problems
- reflect on how to propose ideas for positive change in local and/or global contexts
AcrossRCA launches with a series of presentations and panel discussions from acclaimed speakers who will introduce the themes and act as inspirational starting points for your collaborative team response.
Delivered online and in-person across two terms, the unit has been designed to complement your disciplinary studies and to provide you with a platform to thrive beyond graduation.
External partners
The RCA Sculpture programme is supported by external partners including British Airways, BuildHollywood, Chanel, Colab Sculpture Garden/Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Gilbert Bayes Foundation, Harlow New Town Sculpture Residency, Koko Foundation, Kenneth Armitage Foundation and Prussia Cove.
Requirements
What you need to know before you apply
Candidates are selected entirely on merit and applications are welcomed from all over the world. The selection process considers creativity, imagination and innovation as demonstrated in your portfolio, as well as your potential to benefit from the programme and to achieve high MA standards overall.
You must have a good first degree in sculpture or a relevant subject, as well as being able to display a facility with materials and techniques. You’ll also be knowledgeable about the history and cultural relevance of the disciplines pertinent to the arts and humanities, as well as be able to hold and articulate a view of your own work in relationship to that. You should be able to critically reflect on your work, to question received modes of production and frameworks, and metabolise academic, social and philosophical encounters.
What's needed from you
Portfolio requirements
The Sculpture programme offers an inclusive supportive pedagogic environment for students to explore and engage with current issues and debates surrounding contemporary sculpture. Our curriculum is designed to develop the creative and contextual aspects of our students work. We work with our students to develop the potentials for how they present their work professionally to others.
We ask you to submit documentation of your work in PDF format. You have one slot/basket available to you which can accept one pdf. Your PDF should be a maximum of 15 pages in total. It should include at least 10 to 15 images of your work with the title, date, size and material/media of each work clearly indicated. A limited number of process images of how a work developed can be included. From your portfolio we want to be able to see your work, and make some assessments as to how you approach the conception and making of your sculptures. You may add relevant links to external sites.
Personal statement
Please provide a 300-word written personal statement that addresses the following points:
- Introduce yourself, your interests and your motivations for applying to the Royal College of Art, and to this programme in particular.
- Briefly summarise any educational background and professional experience to date that will support your application.
- Tell us what you want to do in the future.
Video requirements
We ask that you upload a two-minute video recorded on your phone or laptop, speaking to us directly. High production qualities are not needed. We will review the work in your portfolio, so keep your video simple.
In your film we would like to hear about how you approach the conception and making of your sculpture. The issues, and concerns that drive you to create Sculpture? And how you position your Sculpture in a contemporary context?
English-language requirements
If you are not a national of a majority English-speaking country you will need the equivalent of an IELTS Academic or UKVI score of 6.5 with a 6.0 in the Test of Written English (TWE) and at least 5.5 in other skills. Students achieving a grade of at least 6.0, with a grade of 5.5 in the Test of Written English, may be eligible to take the College’s English for Academic Purposes course to enable them to reach the required standard.
You are exempt from this requirement if you have received a 2.1 degree or above from a university in a majority English-speaking nation within the last five years.
If you need a Student Visa to study at the RCA, you will also need to meet the Home Office’s minimum requirements for entry clearance.
Fees & funding
For this programme
Fees for new students
Fees for September 2025 entry on this programme are outlined below. From 2021 onward, EU students are classified as Overseas for tuition fee purposes.
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Overseas and EU
Deposit
New entrants to the College will be required to pay a non-refundable deposit in order to secure their place. This will be offset against the tuition fees.
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Overseas and EU
Progression discount
For alumni and students who have completed an RCA Graduate Diploma and progress onto an RCA Master's programme – MA, MA/MSc, MFA, MDes, MArch, MEd or MRes – within 10 years, a progression discount of £1,000 is available.
* Total cost is based on the assumption that the programme is completed in the timeframe stated in the programme details. Additional study time may incur additional charges.
Scholarships
Scholarships
The RCA scholarship programme is growing, with hundreds of financial awards planned for the 2025/6 academic year.
For more information and examples of financial awards offered in 2024/25, visit the Scholarships & awards webpage.
You must hold an offer to study on an RCA programme in order to make a scholarship application in Spring 2025. A selection of RCA merit scholarships will also be awarded with programme offers.
We strongly recommend that you apply for your programme as early as possible to stand the best chance of receiving a scholarship. You do not apply directly for individual awards; instead, you will be invited to apply once you have received an offer.
More information
Additional fees
In addition to your programme fees, please be aware that you may incur other additional costs associated with your study during your time at RCA. Additional costs can include purchases and services (without limitation): costs related to the purchase of books, paints, textiles, wood, metal, plastics and/or other materials in connection with your programme, services related to the use of printing and photocopying, lasercutting, 3D printing and CNC. Costs related to attending compulsory field trips, joining student and sport societies, and your Convocation (graduation) ceremony.
If you wish to find out more about what type of additional costs you may incur while studying on your programme, please contact the Head of your Programme to discuss or ask at an online or in person Open Day.
We provide the RCASHOP online, and at our Kensington and Battersea Campuses – this is open to students and staff of the Royal College of Art only to provide paid for materials to support your studies.
We also provide support to our students who require financial assistance whilst studying, including a dedicated Materials Fund.
External funding
There are many funding sources, with some students securing scholarships and others saving money from working. It is impossible to list all the potential funding sources; however, the following information could be useful.
Payments
Tuition fees are due on the first day of the academic year and students are sent an invoice prior to beginning their studies. Payments can be made in advance, on registration or in two instalments.
Start your application
Change your life and be here in 2025. Applications now open.
The Royal College of Art welcomes applicants from all over the world.
Before you begin
Make sure you've read and understood the entrance requirements
Visit the requirements pageCheck you have all the information you need to apply.
Read our application process guideConsider attending an Open Day, or one of our portfolio or application advice sessions
See upcoming sessionsPlease note, all applications must be submitted by 12 noon on the given deadline.
Ask a question
Get in touch if you’d like to find out more or have any questions.