Creative Practice

Entry requirements

ACADEMIC ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

• Undergraduate degree with second class upper division (2:1) in a relevant subject within the arts, humanities or a social science discipline or equivalent.
• Applicants with other qualifications and appropriate professional experience may be considered on an individual basis.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ENTRY REQUIREMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

• IELTS 6.5 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Do you believe in the power of creativity to highlight a cause, preserve history, leave a lasting legacy, bring joy, enrich, and sometimes transform people’s lives? If so, our MA will allow you to develop best practice models for participatory research when working with others to make art that is meaningful to them. Capitalising on the vast and varied expertise of our staff, you’ll draw on best practice and real-life challenges of creative practice, from how to increase your chances of external funding success, to avoiding some of the legal pitfalls, and increasing public engagement.

Our MA in Creative Practice aims to give you the tools and techniques to feed your creativity and put it to work practically and innovatively in partnership with organisations, communities and the public. You’ll learn how to develop ideas with participants, engaging, informing and inspiring them through creative work. Aimed at creative practitioners, recent graduates and professionals, it is designed to prepare you to develop collaborative creative arts projects or research, raising your awareness of likely cultural, technological, social, legal and political considerations, while strengthening your own creative practice.

One of the major strengths of this course is the sheer breadth of our faculty’s experience in arts-based participatory research, not to mention our excellent links with arts organisations, such as the British Ceramics Biennial and New Vic Theatre, through Keele Deal Culture and coCreate. You will learn how to fuse different artistic practices, or tailor your own medium or genre to the needs of your collaborators.

The emphasis is on practical application, providing opportunities to develop collaborative projects, undertake a work placement and be taught by a group of historians, environmentalists, activists, acclaimed composers and musicians, published writers, film makers, prize-winning poets and novelists. Like Albert Einstein, they believe that ‘creativity is contagious’ and you should ‘pass it on’, and will share experiences of developing projects with diverse communities, managing conflict, designing art with non-professionals or sourcing funding for their practice.

While the skills and knowledge you develop on the MA Creative Practice are particularly pertinent to roles in arts, culture, heritage, community engagement and consultation, public health and planning, marketing or public relations, the tools and techniques you learn will prove useful in almost any career.

You’ll benefit from excellent communications, critical thinking, problem-solving and project management skills. Creativity – or the ability to solve problems in original ways – regularly tops the list of the soft skills demanded by employers and organisations in any sector need people who can creatively approach problems and tasks. The MA also provides an excellent foundation for further doctoral (PhD) training or academia, here in the UK, Europe or the rest of the world.

Fees and funding

Information relating to the tuition fees and funding options for this course can be viewed on the Keele University website.

https://www.keele.ac.uk/study/postgraduatestudy/tuitionfeesandfunding