Arts University Bournemouth

Arts University Bournemouth has been offering specialist education for over a century and enjoys a strong reputation both nationally and internationally for providing the creative industries with practitioners of the future. The University is situated between Bournemouth and Poole in Dorset on the South Coast of England. London is less than two hours away and is easily reached by regular train and coach services or via good motorway links. Bournemouth and Southampton both have excellent international airports. Based within one attractive campus, both staff and students share a commitment to the disciplines of art, design, media and performance.

The University is committed to offering a unique programme of Postgraduate study and provides a specialist environment for those who wish to engage with their chosen discipline in greater depth and to enhance their potential for professional practice or academic progression. Our strengths lie in the quality of our staff and resources which support learning and creative achievement. We provide an innovative programme of professional practice and research, supported by excellent facilities and latest technologies.

All of the following Taught Degrees are offered on a full and part time basis; click on the links for further information.

MA Animation

MA Animation seeks to explore and develop creative and critical practice within the Animation field. The emphasis is on MA students building upon the foundations of their own existing portfolio of work (produced during under-graduate studies, or past professional work). The course focuses on integrating practice with the emerging and exciting critical, historical and theoretical currents in Animation Studies. Areas of expertise within Animation include a range of expert practitioners in traditional drawn and computer animation, as well as a designated specialist in animation theory and history.

MA Architecture

MA Architecture is a postgraduate course for those not seeking the Part 2 ARB/RIBA exemption, and is open to applicants from a variety of disciplines. It shares curriculum with both the MArch degree and the other MA courses, ensuring disciplinary as well as interdisciplinary perspectives. It offers students opportunities to further their own investigations into space - how it is conceived, theorized, constructed, enacted, performed - from a variety of points of view.

This course will commence in October 2012.

MA Contemporary Performance

MA Contemporary Performance course offers the opportunity to focus on theoretical and practical approaches to this discipline, to explore a broad range of methodologies, and to strengthen individual performance making skills. Graduates from an arts background who are interested in becoming part of the next generation of International contemporary performance artists, theorists, critics, or dramaturges will be encouraged to develop their understanding of professional practice through the exploration and interrogation of themes such as audience, staging, and identity, in relation to the delivery of live and mediated performance.

MA Costume Scenography

MA Costume Scenography supports and develops advanced practitioners who have ambition to explore, challenge and redefine the roles and relationships between costume and 'audience'. The MA student will, through research, scholarship, conceptual enquiry and the making of work, strive toward innovative solutions to complex and individual creative proposals which are the central focus for their personal and artistic development. Research specialisms include live art practice as well as academic, theoretical and critical emphases. Areas of expertise within the course team focus on: world performance and the interaction of East and West in theatrical cultures and stereotypes, examination of the boundaries of design across disciplines, post-modern opera, experimental dance and abstract performance art.

MA Fashion

MA Fashion focuses on design innovation within the global context. Students will develop unique fashion products whilst engaging with contemporary branding concepts, notions of creative business incubation, cross-discipline participation as well as ethical and sustainability issues. The course will appeal to students who wish to not only create fashion products - which evolve through risk taking, experimentation and critical analysis - but also to explore how to brand and market their products in an international environment. Students will engage with industry partners that support and mentor this process. Graduating students will have developed a personal and professional identity and will be able to make a significant contribution to the industry as innovative practitioners.

MA Fine Art

MA Fine Art supports emerging artists who are eager to explore and confront their practice in the endeavour to redefine their position in relation to contemporary art. The MA student is engaged in focusing on the context for practice, where it is aligned with other specialisms and the importance of process and material. Ideas are generated through research, scholarly activity and conceptual enquiry and brought to realisation in an individual body of work that is tested in the public domain. Audience and space are two major factors considered in the process of making work. Areas of expertise within the course team focus on the transformation of materials in the pursuit of meaning, drawing, renewal of painting, the objectness of sculpture, installation and space, performance, video, the document, photography and new media.

MA Graphic Design

MA Graphic Design encourages designers to explore ways to develop understanding between cocommunicators, through systematically interrogating design practice, and by generating alternative visual solutions. MA students enquire into ways that users make meaning from graphic design in order to take into consideration a range of factors (such as materiality and site) that potentially contribute to communication processes. Creative approaches are required that respond to complex situations in which many problems reside. Outcomes are not constrained by media or by limited interpretations of what it is to be a graphic designer. Consequently an outcome might involve the design of an experience or service, as much as it might concern more conventional forms of graphic production.

MA Illustration

MA Illustration encourages practitioners to question the nature of their own practice, its context and place within the creative industries and beyond. The course offers an expansive notion of illustration exploring the relationships between illustrator as author, audience/artifice, and site or context, and the contemporary blurring of boundaries across disciplines. Ideas will be researched and developed through specific individual approaches to practical research and reflective enquiry and applied using appropriate media and techniques. The course will appeal to students who are open to engagement with a diverse range of creative ideas and possibilities, from traditional illustration techniques including drawing and printmaking, to digital lens-based and time-based media, exhibition and performance.

MA Interactive Media

MA Interactive Media supports advanced artists and designers who wish to develop and refine their practice in and through a wide range of digital media. This course is of particular relevance for practitioners wishing to engage directly with skills in interaction design, installation and user-centered design, whilst challenging perceptions of the production and delivery of content in this new-media world. The course provides the support necessary for such personal professional development: an informed critical environment, the use of professional creative design methodologies and exposure to industry-standard design and development processes. Areas of continuing interest that provide starting points for individual work include Future Cinema, Sensate Spaces, Interactive Narrative, Digital Post-Production and Web 2.0 Technology.

MA Photography

MA Photography recognises and celebrates a photographic practice that is an increasingly demanding, diverse, complex, challenging and compelling experience. MA students engage in a practice within a resource that recognises the importance of antiquarian processes through to digital imaging and will have a curiosity about what these possibilities offer in the investigation and representation of social and cultural imperatives. Ideas are generated that provoke a wide diversity of outcomes which reflect demands on the meaning and position of photography in work that could be time-based, sculptural, sitespecific, or which addresses issues raised by the document or other traditional means of representation. Practice is underpinned by history and theories; analytical, critical reflection that supports students in their consideration of the context; audience and professional relevance of their practice in an independent or commercially structured environment.

MArch (Master of Architecture)

Master of Architecture MArch offers students exemption from the Part 2 (ARB/RIBA) - professional examination in architecture on their route to becoming a registered architect. The 2-year course asks students to build upon their academic and practical experience, whilst at the same time provides a curriculum and an environment which support the development of critical and speculative practices, including the questioning of preconceptions about the discipline. Situated within the postgraduate culture of a specialist institution, the course draws upon communities of interdisciplinarity, promoting exchange across different domains of knowledge and skills, whether in the form of shared units, dialogue, collaborations, or methodologies and methods of production.

Visit our website for more information on how to apply for the above Taught Degrees

Research degrees (MPhil / PhD)

Our new research degree programme (commencing in 2011) builds upon our established excellence in undergraduate and Masters level study in the areas of art, design, media and performance. Our research has gained international recognition following our first submission to RAE in 2008.

We offer an exciting opportunity for students wishing to undertake postgraduate research within or across the following disciplines:

• Animation: History, theory and practice
• Fashion: History and theory, 19th century to present day
• Fine Art: Context and practice
• History of Art

Visit our website for more information on how to apply

PG resources

A dedicated postgraduate reading room offers a number of facilities including multi-media equipment. Postgraduate students may access the extensive equipment and facilities available to University students across all areas of study; this includes film and photographic equipment, multi-media technology, design studios and workshops.

Postgraduate Open Days

Postgraduate Open Days are an opportunity to see the University environment, campus, facilities and resources. Most importantly, prospective students will be able to meet with course tutors and current students, offering the opportunity for discussion about the courses, personal circumstances and interests.

Please visit our website for further information about Open Days.

Contact details

If you would like to discuss any aspect of the MA Courses, please contact Astrid MacKellar on: amackellar@aucb.ac.uk or 01202 363384.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of the MPhil/PhD course, please contact Valerie Lodge on: vlodge@aucb.ac.uk or 01202 363334.

More details about Postgraduate study and the Arts University Bournemouth may be found on our website.