MFA application deadline: March 15, 2017
Institute Kunst
FHNW Academy of Art and Design
Freilager-Platz 1
4023 Basel
Switzerland
www.institut-kunst.ch
www.fhnw.ch/hgk/iku
What is the future of the art practice?
To endow artists with the possibility to develop their practice while establishing a relationship with the debates that shape not only our time, but also the uncertain futures ahead. At the core of our Master’s program, we situate nature, gender, race, and belief as the questions to reflect upon in a direct co-existence with studio practice, mentoring, as well as technical trainings and workshops. Nature allows for a distinct reflection on human agency, experience, and technology as realms to explore other forms of perception. Gender translates some of these considerations into the realm of the social; it is one of the most productive ways to understand interrelations, action, and love. Race needs to emerge and be present in all these deliberations; it demands responsibility but also a new plastic, a new experience inside a heterogeneous society that has proven unable and even unwilling to deal with its reality. Belief is important because it names a state of mind, a tool to situate hope, but also a notion that ranges in the many exercises proliferating in our societies to keep calm in the rise of religion.
How is this to be understood?
At the core of our Master’s is artistic practice. Since its relocation to the Dreispitz Campus three years ago, the Art Institute is equipped with new technical facilities and staff to assure the possibility of exploring many forms of the digital and material worlds in the practice. The Master’s is a time to be bold, to take your ideas further with the help of technical experts who will introduce you to both digital tools and technical skills in proper spaces for experimentation. At the same time, we want you to open yourself to all the mentors who are there to help you shape your own views and language, and to the class in group presentations we call plenums.
But where do all these questions appear?
For two years we have been developing a series of seminars about art and science (with Julieta Aranda, Chus Martínez, and Filipa Ramos) where we invite scientists and artists to deal with the questions mentioned above. We also organize a two-to-three-day international symposium every semester, and these issues reappear in our plenums conducted by Roman Kurzmeyer, Mathilde Rosier, and Chus Martínez with guest artists in the second year. Also: writer Birgit Kempker conducts exercises on consciousness and reflexivity and artist Renée Levi teaches seminars on art in the public space.
We place big value on developing special projects. Established collaborations with different museums and art institutions give students many possibilities to exhibit outside the Institute during the Master’s. And we are working hard to create a network of residency possibilities for graduates in cities from Barcelona to Porto to Calcutta.
We have a large number of guests and mentors who regularly give students support throughout the year: Kenneth Goldsmith, Elise Lammer, Hannah Weinberger, Basim Magdy, Mareike Dittmer, Eduardo Navarro, Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, Hugo Canoilas, Ingo Niermann, Bojan Šarčević, Trevor Paglen, Paul Feigelfeld, Jan Kiefer, Claudia Müller, Anna-Sophie Springer, Birgit Schneider as well as many scientist including David Gruber, Volker Sommer, Marta Moita, Marcus Coate, Alexander Tarakhovsky, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, and more.
It is essential to mention that ours is a public school that only accepts 20 students per year. This allows each student to have a studio and the time and attention necessary to continuously follow their artistic development.
Master of Fine Arts two-year full-time program, 120 ECTS credits.
CHF 700 tuition per semester for Swiss and EU citizens.
CHF 5000 tuition per semester for students from outside the EU region. Reductions can be granted in certain cases.
The semester starts on September 18, 2017
*Image above: (1) Julieta Aranda, The Organ at the TANK, 2016. Photo: Brigham Baker. (2) ACT Auftakt, 2016. Photo: Christian Knörr. (3) Julieta Aranda, The Organ at the TANK (detail), 2016. Photo: Brigham Baker. (4) Symposium: on Innocence, Natascha Sadr, 2015. Photo: Christian Knörr. (5) Mathilde Rosier, In Revolution at the TANK, 2016. Photo: Nici Jost. (6) Mathilde Rosier, In Revolution at the TANK (detail), 2016. Photo: Nici Jost. (7) Der TANK. Photo: Nici Jost. (8) Students workshop at the TANK, 2016. Photo: Nici Jost. (9) Symposium: on Innocence, Diego Blas, 2015. Photo: Christian Knörr. (10) Symposium: on Innocence, Kenneth Goldsmith, 2015. Photo: Christian Knörr.