Application deadline: April 30, 2016
MaHKU Fine Art
Ina Boudier-Bakkerlaan 50
3582 VA Utrecht
The Netherlands
MaHKU (Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art and Design) offers a one-year Master of Arts (MA) program. The program consists of seminars, workshops, studios, and tutorials where artists, architects, curators, designers, and various theorists share their knowledge, creativity, and professional insights with MaHKU students.
The MaHKU MA Fine Art program departs from the student’s individual research trajectory: a project proposal that is part of the application procedure for the master program. Through various components of the program, such as critical studies, studio practice, spatial practice, and curatorial studies, students are incited further to realize and contextualize their own research projects. The master year is concluded by a curated exhibition and a research report.
Since its start in 2004, the MaHKU MA Fine Art program has always attracted a body of students from various parts of the world. In fact, students from 48 different countries have studied in the program. The diversity in both geographic background and artistic interest has contributed profoundly to MaHKU’s dynamic research environment.
MaHKU’s vigorous research environment is enhanced even more by an experimental curriculum focused on artistic thought processes, critical spatial practices, and context-responsiveness. Moreover, the MaHKU MA Fine Art program has a history of implying various collaborations with well-known international platforms in its curriculum. Recent examples include dOCUMENTA 13, 2012, where MaHKU was one of ten invited art schools for the Innovative Art Academies Network; the 1st Tbilisi Triennial for Art, Education and Research, 2012; “Joyful Wisdom,” parallel event to the 13th Istanbul Biennale, 2013; “Aesthetic Jam,” Taipei Biennial 2014; and the 1st Research Pavilion, “Experimentality,” Venice Biennale 2015.
In the context of its experimental research environment, MaHKU MA Fine Art has been at the forefront of the debate on artistic research worldwide taking place over the recent decade. In 2006, MaHKU was one of the initiators of the European Artistic Research Network (EARN), a joint venture of 10 European Graduate Schools. In that same year, MaHKU set up two dissemination platforms: the yearly Dutch Artistic Research Event (DARE) with speakers such as Claire Doherty, Nicolas Bourriaud, Hubertus von Amelunxen, Maria Lind, Nikolaus Hirsch and Ane Hjort Guttu; and the publication series MaHKUzine. Journal of Artistic Research, with themes such as: “A Certain Ma-Ness,” “Nameless Science,” “Urban Knowledge,” “Spatial Practice,” “Epistemic Encounters,” and “As the Academy Turns.” At this moment, MaHKU is developing a new series of publications, MaHKUscript, a peer-reviewed journal of fine art research. The first issue will appear this December.
In conclusion, MaHKU MA Fine Art considers itself a test site, where the program continuously produces debates and publications dealing with facilitating, situating and composing topical, relevant forms of graduate art education.
Current MaHKU lecturers include a.o. Lara Almarcegui, Tiong Ang, Annette W. Balkema, Ursula Biemann, Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan, Jeremiah Day, Maria Hlavajova, Klaas Hoek, Jan Kaila, Irene Kopelman, Annette Krauss, Dongyoung Lee, Geert Lovink, Markus Miessen, Falke Pisano, Liza May Post, Domeniek Ruijters, Janwilem Schrofer, Henk Slager (Dean), Mick Wilson and Edwin Zwakman. External Examiner: Marquard Smith.
MaHKU Master of Arts degrees are internationally acknowledged and accredited by the Open University Validation Services in London (OU).
Information and application:
Application and admission during the year.
Students with a BA in Fine Art, Spatial Design and other relevant studies are welcome to apply. Ultimate deadline for 2016 is April 30.
For more information and application see www.mahku.nl or contact [email protected].
