Application period: December 1, 2015–January 15, 2016
University of Gothenburg
Valand Academy
Vasagatan 50
Gothenburg
Sweden
www.akademinvaland.gu.se
akademinvaland.gu.se/education
www.universityadmissions.se
Hej from Valand Academy!
We’re writing to invite you to apply for fall 2016 entry to our MFA: Fine Art or MFA: Photography programmes. Both are two-year, full-time, and taught in English, with no tuition fees for EU/EAA nationals.
Swedish Institute and the University of Gothenburg offer competitive scholarships.
At Valand Academy we are interested in creating a social and dialogical educational environment that supports the development of independent artists (working individually and collectively) across our four subject areas: Contemporary Art, Photography, Film, and Literature. As a Masters student, you will be contributing to this community and to the development of your chosen subject via peer learning in highly supported year-groups (typically 8 to 14 participants). We teach through multiple methods, including: individual and group critique, personal tutoring, lectures, seminars, workshops, dialogues, fieldwork, individual and group projects. We have great workspaces, technical resources and equipment, and dedicated, highly experienced educators who operate publicly, sustain practices internationally, and enjoy teaching.
You will encounter a lively, curious and globally networked research community, including several prestigious nationally-funded research projects in: artist-led cultures, social practices, queer cinema, contemporary poetry, and photographic archives/imaging practices in environmental and climate science. We are also actively engaged in the Platform for Artistic Research Sweden. We have been leaders in developing doctoral education for and by artists, and our MFAs can be approached as preparatory for further study or for ongoing practice outside and beyond the academy.
With worldwide connections and multiple partners, we sustain a critical, international and cosmopolitan outlook, interrogating the terms of engagement by which artistic practices may contribute to, critique and challenge the complexities and dominant conditions of our world. We regularly host debates, symposia, talks, conferences and seminars bringing some of the most thoughtful, inspiring and concerned practitioners and thinkers from around the globe. As a Masters student, you will work in dialogue with them.
We’re in the centre of the port city of Gothenburg, surrounded by ocean and forests with a unique archipelago, and with transit links across Scandinavia, Europe and the wider world. Gothenburg is home to multiple museums, theatres and events, including the Gothenburg Biennial for Contemporary Art, Gothenburg Film Festival, Hasselblad Foundation, Röda Sten Konsthall, independent artist-led platforms and publishers, a great book fair, dance and theatre festivals, and a music scene that rocks.
If you are a contemporary artist or photographic practitioner and feel now is the time to be more than a number or a paying guest in an educational factory; if you think you have something to say about the world, or if you wish to be in dialogue with the wider world; if you believe in cross-cultural exchange, co-learning and you’re up for a challenge—then we’re here, ready and waiting for you.
Yours faithfully,
Valand Academy
Contact us with your questions at:
MFA Photography: [email protected]
MFA Fine Art: [email protected]
