The suite of Master of Art (Art and Design) currently offers the following spe​cialist pathways: ​​Art History through Practice Art, Science & Technology Death & Visual Culture Design Futures Ecologies Fashion Design Futures Philosophy Art History through Practice Pathway The MA Art History through Practice (Art and Design) is ideal preparation for anyone interested in pursuing a career in the art world. The teaching centres on the world class collection in the National Gallery of Wales in Cardiff, which includes major works by Poussin, Claude, Gainsborough, Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh and Rodin amongst others. Lectures and seminars will be supported by the first hand examination of particular works in the Gallery. The pathway is assessed partly through writing and partly through practice: there will be an opportunity for students to realise a curatorial intervention within the Museum or to participate in its voluntary work scheme. Some familiarity with art history is desirable but not essential. The pathway is structured around the practice of art history, which means that academic research and writing is embedded in a spectrum of activities that could include making, selecting and arranging objects, writing reviews and proposals, and participating in conferences. There is an emphasis on creative practice, but an art historical, rather than a fine art practice. This is not a studio-based MA. We work closely with the Museum and the Museum collection. The art history centres on areas of strength within the Museum’s holdings: European landscape art, British landscape art, Welsh art, Impressionism & Post-Impressionism, photography and contemporary art. The teaching does not cover all of this ground every year, but draws from it. The content changes to a certain extent, from year to year, depending on current and upcoming shows. There are also sessions addressing contemporary debates in curatorial practice; students are encouraged to question and look beyond current museological practice. The pathway does not culminate in a standard dissertation, instead students are expected to select an artwork in the Museum’s collection and propose an exhibition around it, accompanied by an academic essay setting out the research and the argument informing their proposal. Close Art, Science & Technology Pathway The Art, Science and Technology pathway is part of our MA Art and Design programme. It offers philosophical study of the relationship between art, science and technology, and studio exploration of how scientific knowledge and various technologies can be applied in interdisciplinary art practice. It is intended for art and design graduates who wish to develop their work in dialogue with science or technology, and for science graduates who wish to explore how art and design theory and practice can inform our understanding of science and technology. It is also intended for graduates from any background who wish to acquire theoretical and practical knowledge of the nature of interdisciplinarity. Most importantly, it is designed for graduates who want to wrestle with the practical and philosophical issues that arise when subjects collide, and arrive at an understanding of what it means to fall in between. Close Death & Visual Culture Pathway The Death and Visual Culture pathway is part of our MA Art and Design programme. Death and Visual Culture will analyse representations of death and dying through an investigation of theoretical concepts and debates applied to all aspects of visual culture, including fine art, film, fashion, material culture, photography, television and gaming. Students will be encouraged to analyse case studies in relation to sociological, psychoanalytic and philosophical theoretical disciplines on death. The pathway will specifically consider: • How is death manifested aesthetically within visual and material culture? • How does visual and material culture document narratives and experiences of mourning and bereavement? • What socio-cultural and ideological perspectives emerge in an analysis of death’s presence and absence within visual culture? This pathway is particularly suitable for those who have an undergraduate degree in Art and Design, Film Studies, Media, Psychology, Photography, Sociology, Fashion and Textiles Close Design Futures Pathway This is a call to arms for designers who dream.We are looking for visionary and imaginative graduates from any discipline who are seriously committed to thinking about the future. That might be the future of the human species, the future of technology, or of the planet, or of the design profession and their own future within it. 19th Century Designers had the vision to imagine a future of prosperity, health and democracy all made possible by a wondrous new Age of Machines. Today we benefit from that foresight and live longer, healthier and more exploratory lives than at any time in our species history. But this has not come without cost to our liberty, our values and to the ecology we share. Today we stand at the brink of a new age where there is no longer a category of imagination we can call science fiction. We can now reasonably foresee a future where genetic redesign, or the enhancement of our own intellect and cognition will be possible. Do we approach that Age with the same spirit of optimism as our 19th Century forebears or do we face it with caution, in fear of a future where everything is messed up, where values are thrown up in the air, overturned, inverted and turned inside out. We need to face that future as designers by calling into question everything we currently take for granted. Just as at the start of the last century, our politicians seem lost and incapable of imagination and the leadership required for this new Age, so where are the designers? Designers turned the horror of the machine into something we could use everyday and build into our lives; can they do the same with the future we face? We can’t leave it to anyone else, we need the imaginative, speculative and visionary designers again.The aim of the MA (Design Futures) is to enable a forum for intellectually liberal but rigorous speculation and creative research. This is an MA that will appeal to design students who wish to explore how they can intellectually and creatively play their part in setting out to identify, challenge and resolve the challenges we will face in the future. The programme is intended for graduates from any discipline who aspire to develop a sustainable future design career in a developing intellectual and / or commercial context. Students work within a negotiated programme of learning closely supported by an experienced academic tutor who will work with them to develop a personal intellectual, creative and strategic direction. Close Ecologies Pathwayy Ecologies’ is a specialism within the Philosophy pathway on our MA Art and Design programme. ‘Ecology’ is taken in its widest, philosophical sense to mean the study of connection, interrelationship and belonging. It is intended for art and design graduates who wish to develop the ecological dimension of their practice, and for humanities or science graduates who are interested in how ecology and visual practice can inform one another. It is a research-preparation Masters programme that can be taken either as a theory–practice or a purely theoretical route. The form that your work might take is one of the philosophical questions we discuss. Some familiarity with ecological theory or practice is desirable but not essential. Close Fashion Design Futures The Fashion Futures programme aims to help Fashion Design and Textiles Design graduates build a sustainable career in a changing world by developing a deep and intellectually sound understanding of how ideas and design practice can both anticipate and drive the future of their industry. The focus of the group teaching and individual discussion will be determined in part by the make-up of the group but will always be placed upon providing the intellectual and creative tools and advice to enable individual students to strengthen and develop their own practice and intellectual enquiry strengths by situating them in a self-defined career strategy. Close Philosophy The Philosophy pathway is intended for artists and designers who want to rethink their practice from a philosophical perspective, or for anyone with an interest in the demands that creating and thinking make upon one other. The pathway explores the interaction between philosophy and art and design, including how art and design inform philosophy as a practice. It is a research-preparation programme that can be completed either through written coursework or through a variable combination of writing and practice. The form that your work might take is one of the philosophical questions we discuss. Some familiarity with philosophy is desirable but not essential. Art and design are fundamentally philosophical. In different but related ways, art and design challenge the meanings and values we attach to objects and situations, and have the potential to transform human being and action. These challenges and transformations invite philosophical appraisal, but not just in order to preserve truth or to keep things in check. Philosophy offers some of the most stimulating and influential ideas about art, the senses, technology and culture in modern thought. Putting philosophy and art and design together will generate proposals, challenges, artefacts and situations which will alter and expand what it means to think, make and experience. The pathway has three main components: (1) foundations and key concepts in aesthetics; (2) contemporary debates in the philosophy of art and design; and (3) your own self-directed project. Some of the topics covered typically include: Key philosophers and concepts in the history of aesthetics, from Plato to the present The phenomenology of art and design Aesthetics and ecology What is technology? How does it affect what we can do? What forms are appropriate to art and design as critical or ethical practices? What relationship do art, design and philosophy have with writing? How does writing change what we see and think? Training in a series of cross-disciplinary research methods is given, and your own philosophical and studio interests are developed in relation to key concepts and contemporary debates. As the year progresses, readings, seminars and workshops are tailored increasingly to the philosophical and studio interests of the group. The programme culminates in a self-directed major study that is either a written thesis or a combination of writing and practice. The cultivation of a philosophical practice through art or design is encouraged. Close The Master of Art (Art and Design) programme will cater for students who wish to develop their academic and research knowledge from within the practical disciplines and wider academic fields of Fine Art and Design. Typically this might include teachers, aspiring artists or designers, aspiring academics, or recent graduates in Fine Art or Design who wish to further their professional practice. It will also cater for those students with first degrees outside Art & Design who wish to convert their career path by following a more theoretical route in Art and Design.

The MA Art and Design acts as a gateway to research or advanced experimental practice. It has an option for students to focus on research (by taking the initial formal PG Cert Research Skills module) or by taking an alternative creative practice route both leading towards potential future MPhil/PhD study. Students taking the MA Art and Design align with specific research and experimental practice pathways, led by academic staff with established practice careers and/or advanced scholarship and research. The MA Art and Design programme is designed to enable students to achieve the attributes of greater flexibility, adaptability, and individual responsibility and autonomy as professional artists, designers or researchers. The MA Art and Design programme aims to develop increasing creativity, self-reliance, initiative, and the ability to perform in rapidly changing environments as well as increasing competence with research skills and methods which will make graduates highly employable as academics and or researchers or enable them to develop an active and sustained practice as artists or designers.