Craft and Material Practices MA

A practice-led, materials-focused MA that takes craft as a starting point rather than a destination. Develop a future-oriented professional practice through material-led research processes, supported by specialist studios, digital fabrication in Fab Lab South West, and an interdisciplinary postgraduate structure.

MA Craft & Material Practices is a course that takes craft as a starting point rather than a destination. Steeped in tacit knowledge often transmitted through hands-on skills and heritage traditions, you will be guided in material-led research processes in clay, glass, wood, biomaterials, metals, fibre or other materials that lead to personal discovery and future-oriented, contemporary professional practice.

Through instruction that takes place in our spacious, highly resourced material labs, workshops and studios, you will be encouraged to expand your knowledge of materials and traditional methods of making into new territories of practice open to alternative materials, conceptual frameworks and cross-sector understanding of how materially led innovation is shaping the world.

### At a glance

* Award: MA Craft & Material Practices

* Approach: practice-led, materials-focused curriculum

* Postgraduate structure: shared units with MA students in other disciplines (critiques, seminars, research intensives, external site visits and lectures)

### Materials, studios and resources

Your creative study will bring you into contact with the ideas and professional practices of artisans, artists, designers, material researchers, product designers, urban planners, architects and others who are working directly with the behaviour and potential of materials in both expressive and applied design.

You will have access to specialist studios and resources including:

* Hot glass

* Kiln-formed glass

* Ceramics

* 3D clay-printing

* Biomaterials

* Wood-working

* Small metals

* Fab Lab South West digital tools (open-source, digital and distributed fabrication)

### Interdisciplinary postgraduate structure

Your materials exploration in craft is guided by the interdisciplinary structure of the postgraduate course. You will share a common series of units with MA students in other disciplines for critiques, seminars, research intensives, external site visits and lectures.

Specialist instruction in craft and other material practices is taught through smaller seminars where you will concentrate on contemporary ideas and models of practice.

### Contemporary ideas, debates and models of practice

You will broaden your understanding of craft to see its relationship to current debates in art theory, design-thinking, materials science and engineering, social or community-based making, climate change, and sustainability.

### Why choose this course?

* Deepen your knowledge and experience of your craft in a practice-led, materials-focused curriculum that provides unique opportunities for personal and professional development.

* Discover new and emerging methods of making within a vast, purpose-built studio building that unites material exploration in ceramics, glass, wood, metals and biomaterials with state-of-the-art digital fabrication.

* Explore the cultural and community-based traditions of craft through a contemporary and critical lens, aligning your practice to relevant theories, research methods and professional opportunities for exhibition.

### Careers and future opportunities

Career opportunities include: Designers, Makers, Craftspeople, Artisans, Craft Entrepreneurs, Materials Specialists, Artists and Crafts Educators.