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MA - Creative Practice

Whether you are progressing from undergraduate studies or you are an established professional with a desire to diversify your practice, our exciting and innovative Creative Practice masters will enable you to develop and extend your creative portfolio and boost your professional aspirations.

Multidisciplinary practice is a defining aspect of the programme and you will be part of a rewarding learning environment that opens-up opportunities for creative exchange or collaboration on projects.

Apply (Full-time)

Creative Practice cover image

Course Overview

The choice is yours. You will draft, initiate and project-manage your own creative briefs, with guidance from programme tutors. You can specialise in one medium or work on projects, either individually or collaboratively, across multiple media. You will have access to technician expertise and the industry-standard facilities at our Brampton Road campus. Our MA will give you the practical, technical, and applied knowledge to develop the flexible skills needed to forge a career within a constantly shifting cultural landscape.

The MA Creative Practice programme is structured across a full-calendar year starting in late September and culminating the following August. The programme leads towards the completion of a major MA Project, and professional presentation in the final Masters exhibition. Working under the guidance of your tutors you can approach the practical modules thematically, as part of one overarching project, or as a series of mini briefs.

On this course you will...

  • Study in industry-standard studio spaces that include Mac and PC computer suites carrying the latest high-specification design and video production software and hardware.
  • Benefit from opportunities to showcase your work within a professional context including the final MA show and graduate exhibitions in London.
  • Have access to technical expertise and facilities including the printmaking studio, 3D workshop, audio-visual store, photography darkrooms, editing suites, motion capture tech and a production studio with a full lighting rig and multi-camera set-up.
  • Gain from the professional development built into module content - tutors have great industry links (including a Hollywood scriptwriter and comic-strip artist), which gives you the opportunity to network and make industry contacts.
  • Learn from academic practitioners that are experts in their field, have published and/or exhibited nationally and internationally and are involved in practice-led research.
Apply (Full-time)

Course Structure

What you will learn

Our learning environment works to cultivate practical and theoretical expertise to help foster versatility in creative media. We encourage innovative, lateral approaches to creative practice though a structured timetable of theoretical lectures, practical workshops, student led seminars, visiting speakers, action based and experiential research, self-directed and tutorial-based learning.

Cultural and visual discourse is taught throughout, displaying the important synthesis between theory and creative practice. You'll fully engage in these processes to develop creative reflexivity, to embed the necessary skills to advance your professional progression and life-long learning.

Module content comprises taught and workshop elements which are centred on exploring creative materials and processes, practice-led research, theoretical frameworks, storytelling techniques and developing the entrepreneurial skills needed to help you succeed as a confident, forward-thinking practitioner.

Year one
  • Critical Contexts (Semester 1)
    Explores a range of cultural contexts within which the arts operate, and introduce theoretical methods of analysis. Module content will comprise of a series of lectures exploring ways of framing and understanding cultural phenomena, and accompanying reading groups to consolidate your learning.
  • Materials and Processes (Semester 1)
    Encourages a considered philosophical and practical approach to creative practice at an advanced professional level and to design and/or adopt appropriate strategies to address the specific requirements of a creative brief; which may be discipline-specific or interdisciplinary in conception.
  • Media Narratives (Semester 1)
    Explores conceptual and practical approaches to storytelling. The content explores issues relating to the creation, production, and reception of narrative texts. Themes covered include the reading of text and images, cinematic constructs, genre studies, formalist narratology, sound and audio design.
  • Creative Practice (Semester 2)
    Reflecting on previous modules completed in Semester 1, or looking ahead the final MA Project, students will develop a systematic plan of action to address a designated brief; to formulate and implement a sustained practice-based response leading to the realisation of a creative project.
  • Project Proposal and Professional Development (Semester 2)
    Seen in conjunction with the final MA Project, the purpose of this module is to enable students to synthesise the knowledge and understanding gained through study up until this point towards the production of a fully researched and developed MA Project Proposal document and accompanying portfolio.
  • MA Project (Semester 2: extended)
    The final MA Project module affords the opportunity to realise practical and theoretical studies to date in the form of a major body of MA work. You will largely work independently on your project work which will be included in the public-facing Masters exhibition.

Attend an Open Day at Cumbria

An Open Day is your opportunity to explore one of 5 campuses, meet your lecturers, and find out how the University of Cumbria could become your new home.

Take the next step towards achieving your dreams.
A student stands in front of a wall splattered with paint.