Arts University Bournemouth

Arts University Bournemouth (formerly The Arts University College at Bournemouth, AUB), Established in 1885 as a specialist institution, is now a leading University offering high quality specialist education in art, design, media and performance across the creative industries. We remain passionate about our subjects and continue to encourage curiosity, risk-taking and adventure in exploring and pushing subject knowledge and its boundaries. The University provides staff and students with a well resourced environment in which to practise to the highest professional standards.

We're special because we're specialist.

AUB is one of only fifteen higher education institutions in the UK devoted solely to the study of art, design and media. The University has been providing specialist education for over a century and enjoys a strong reputation, both nationally and internationally.

The University is a compact institution with over 3,000 students based on one campus. We are a creative community where both staff and students share a commitment to the disciplines of art, design, media and performance.

Studying at AUB presents many opportunities to engage with the creative spirit that characterises life at the University. Students and staff work in partnership on an innovative programme of professional practice and research, with different disciplines encouraged to work together.

The industry experience and engagement of our academics, and the advice and guidance of our impartial careers service, mean that our students are provided with a wide range of subject-specific and generic advice on employability.

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.

Animation Production

The MA Animation Production enables students to develop themselves and their work by focusing on Practice, Theory and Professionalism and the 'critical dialogue' between them.

More specifically, the MA Animation Production will draw upon our institutional and team strengths to allow students to explore their practice in a postgraduate context. The AUB Animation philosophy sees observation, drawing and an understanding of the traditional principles of animation as fundamental, but these are critically contextualised in relation to technology, history, theory and professional/studio practice. The course team are regularly augmented by Visiting Tutors and specialists from industry - visitors to date include award-winning animators Bill Plympton, Barry Purves, Joanna Quinn and Suzie Templeton.

MA Architecture

The MA Architecture: Spatial Practices course engages you in the potential and complexities of space and spatial design. You may come to the course with a background in architecture, interior design, landscape design, urban design or planning, or may have studied subjects from across the humanities, arts, and social sciences including geography, sociology, psychology, anthropology, fine art and performance. This masters course supports and encourages you to investigate your individual practice within an interdisciplinary framework whilst developing a critical theoretical context for your work. You will have the opportunity to engage with spatial and architectural thinking and modes of production as located within social, political and economic contexts. You will develop as a professional who considers their creative practice holistically and globally.

MA Contemporary Performance

The MA Contemporary Performance course encourages students to engage with a broad range of theoretical and practical approaches to 'performance making'. This course is not exclusively for graduates of courses in acting, drama, or performance studies; we welcome students from backgrounds of study in the arts or science, as this is not specifically an actor training, but an opportunity to explore performativity from an individual or collaborative perspective. The course appeals to students who are inspired by engagement with a diverse range of performance possibilities including live art, digital, post-text, and radical theatre practice but can also be used to question how classical theatrical methodologies might interact with twenty-first century aesthetics.

MA Costume Scenography

The MA Costume Scenography course engages the student in the potential of performance design and garment construction to explore complex ideas that may stray into other areas of artistic experimentation. Students may come to the course with a background in costume, fashion, textiles, and theatre design or may have studied subjects from across the humanities including arts and performance. This masters programme supports and encourages the student to investigate individual practice within an interdisciplinary framework, whilst developing a critical theoretical context for their work. The very special and unique nature of course delivery, through shared lecture, seminars and critiques and tutorials encourages both a 'free wheeling' atmosphere as well as an intense immersion in creative practice.

MA Fashion

The MA Fashion course is designed to enable students from a broad range of Fashion related areas to engage with Masters level study.

The course embraces the distinctive characteristics of the provision including a multi-disciplinary learning environment that supports the student's individual creative journey. This journey is informed and defined by the integrated and diverse nature of the modern fashion industry as well as the social, economic and political drivers of global culture.

MA Fine Art

The MA Fine Art course enables you to develop your practice as an artist within a supportive, analytical and critical environment. It engages with the forefront of contemporary art practice and seeks to contribute a dynamic voice within it. You develop a questioning mind in developing a new outlook to your chosen field. You examine your existing position and art practice at the outset of the course, and through personal reflection and tutorial advice and guidance, a structured plan of practice and research is formulated.

MA Graphic Design

The MA Graphic Design course encourages designers to explore ways of developing understanding between co-communicators. You will do this by systematically interrogating design practice, through using design methods to analyse and comprehend situations and behaviour and by generating alternative and novel visual solutions. Students apply to the course predominantly from graphic design courses but are welcomed from a variety of backgrounds (if they can show an aptitude for typography) where they may have studied photography, architecture, illustration, interaction design, three dimensional design, fine art, or, subjects such as journalism, philosophy, psychology, anthropology or sociology. Whatever your background, you will be required to reflect on your worldview; the underlying assumptions and understanding that guides and constrains your practice, and to use this reflection as a starting point from which to further develop. Your practice can take many forms: it can be self-expressive, or socially orientated; print, screen-based or three-dimensional. It can focus on an aspect of a well-defined area of design, such as branding, experimental typography, publishing, and user-centred design, or on something more unconventional defined as part of your study.

MA Illustration

The MA Illustration course encourages practitioners to question the nature of their practice and its context and position relative to the creative industries. It recognises an expansive understanding of illustration through the exploration of relationships between illustrator as author, their audience and presentation, and sites and contexts for the work. Ideas are developed through specific individual approaches to research into practice and reflective enquiry. You may come to the course from a number of diverse backgrounds including illustration, graphic design, printmaking, drawing, photography and painting, or from outside art and design practice, having experience across other subject disciplines but demonstrating an abiding interest and evidence of a passion for illustration in all or any of its forms, good ideas and a willingness to take risks with your work.

MA Interactive Media

The MA Interactive Media course supports advanced artists and designers who wish to develop and refine their practice in a wide range of digital media. It 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 new-media. 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.

Working with students and staff from across a breadth of MA disciplines, you will enrich the wider post-graduate dynamic at the AUB with the individual experience and graduate expertise you bring with you.

MA Photography

The MA Photography course recognises and celebrates a photographic practice that is an increasingly demanding, diverse, complex, challenging and compelling experience.

Students engage in a practice within a resource that understands the importance of antiquarian processes through to contemporary forms, 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 that reflect demands on the meaning and position of photography in work that could be time-based, sculptural, site-specific - or address issues raised by the document or other traditional means of representation. Crucial to the curiosity that we seek in students is their added compelling passion for the practice itself and a commitment to risk-taking, for it is through this that creative movement can take place and where the rewards are to be had.

MArch (Master of Architecture)

The Arts University Bournemouth offers students an exciting and unique opportunity to study on a highly creative postgraduate architecture course. Although students will be embarking on a professional Masters in Architecture which shares with other QAA Architecture Final Awards in the UK criteria set down by the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), here at AUB they will be engaging with a very special context, and with a distinctive approach to architectural education.

Located within a specialist art, design, media and performance institution, the course offers students the potential to study alongside other creative and cultural disciplines and to determine their individual emphases of practice through interdisciplinary collaborations. There are opportunities to work together in many different ways, whether in shared elements of study (especially with other MA students) or special projects, through shared facilities (such as workshops), or on an informal, ad hoc basis with other students. Collaboration will introduce the techniques and ways of thinking of other specialisms, offering dialogue and exchange. Through sharing practice and theory with other specialisms students will increase their awareness and critical understanding of the specific features and characteristics at the core of architectural practice and thought.

Research degrees (MPhil / PhD)

Our new research degree programme 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@aub.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.