Applied Arts and Social Practice (MA)

Entry requirements

A UK honours degree (or equivalent) in a creative subject area OR significant work experience in arts-led community projects.

You will be required to outline your creative practice as part of the application so that we can ensure we have suitable expertise and facilities to support the type of work you wish to undertake. You will need to provide this in the form of a portfolio.

International: You will be required to provide evidence of English language competence at no less than IELTS 6.5 with no individual component score less than 6.0.

Months of entry

January, September

Course content

‘Applied Art’ and socially engaged practices are contested terms and we don’t aim to define a single approach, but instead seek to support creative processes/skills operating within particular social contexts. This could include any creative practice (such as theatre, art, music, dance or puppetry, just to name a few) that does not exist in traditional spaces (such as museums, theatres or galleries) but rather is based alongside and with individuals and communities in the public domain.

Over the past three decades within the UK, there has been a significant and sustained growth of the arts within a social context. Indeed, the current national cultural strategy in Scotland looks at embedding artistic and creative practices across numerous sectors, inviting artists, theatre makers, musicians and all creative practitioners to be productive within industry, business, education and social settings.

Concurrently, the arts are becoming more important within health and wellbeing contexts and the national report ‘Creative Health: Arts for Health and Wellbeing’ calls for artists to play a vital role in the social health and wellbeing of the population to the extent that GPs in England can prescribe artistic activities in order to tackle social issues such as obesity, loneliness and depression. This MA will provide qualified students a strong base to build and develop your career as a creative practitioner working alongside communities.

The course focuses on the applied use of creative activities, and it looks at the history of socially engaged art and how there has been a significant and sustained growth of the arts within a social context over the past three decades within the UK. It provides students with the necessary knowledge, skills and experience to best prepare them for applying the arts and creativity to areas such as third-sector organisations, public health, social welfare, education or criminal justice.

You will spend time exploring your own ethical frameworks of why and how such creative projects can operate in the social domain.

The course aims to provide students with the financial and enterprise skills to establish and market themselves as creative practitioners working in social contexts in a sustainably professional manner, including fundraising and finance skills as well as planning and marketing.