Ceramics & Glass

The spectrum of enquiry is driven by live and studio projects. We’ll explore archives and collections to understand, question and reinterpret how the histories and traditions of our disciplines inform contemporary culture. Our relationship with site, communities and the built environment provides a framework for developing proposals. Specialist tutor-led group work focuses on areas such as metaphorical and phenomenological meaning within materiality. Finally, you’ll explore design-led ideas through object use, and the systems of production that they emerge from.

Drawing on our diverse network of contacts within the subject specialisms, lectures, artist talks and professional practice seminars from industry leaders are combined with field trips and practical skill sessions to support independent learning. Studio culture is nurtured within dedicated facilities that offer opportunities for collaborative and cross-disciplinary approaches – all aimed at developing the next generation of leading Ceramics & Glass graduates. Alongside programme-specific delivery, theory and contextual studies will be delivered across the Applied Art disciplines, situating and contextualising a material-led practice's thinking (and making) into the broader world.

Term 1

Interrogating Your Practice and Deconstructing Assumptions (45 credits)

This unit focuses on developing tools for deconstructing and critiquing your own practice and previous methods/approaches, as well as providing new contexts and directions for your work. Emphasis is placed on inviting new thoughts and progressive ideas through which to develop a ceramics and glass practice. During the unit you will be offered a series of opportunities to explore techniques, collections, environments alongside new modes of thinking aimed at challenging and expanding your current perception of Ceramics & Glass practice.

You will choose a Platform through which you will more closely align with the research interests of a smaller group of students. These Platforms are reactive to contemporary concerns and driven by staff research. Tutors leading these groups will deliver content which allows a particular vantage on the wider disciplines of Ceramics and Glass. The Platforms curriculum will be delivered via one-to-one tutorial, group critique, a workshop, a site visit/study, and seminar around the Platform theme. Platforms are to be understood as points of departure for experimental and investigative self-directed practice, as well as facilitators for peer learning in relation to creative ambition.

Term 2

Developing Methodologies (30 credits)

Throughout this unit, you will explore themes situated within wider material culture particularly those revealed by self-directed study via the lens of a Ceramics & Glass practice. Through experimentation and research, you will establish and develop the methodologies that will define their emerging practice. Developments and lines of enquiry formulated in Interrogating Your Practice and Deconstructing Assumptions, and through the Platform, will act as a background for the production of a body of work. You will be required to write your proposal and develop the summative project for the Independent Research Project by the middle of this unit.

Urgency of the Arts (School-Wide Unit) (15 credits)

In term 2, School of Arts & Humanities Master's students will participate in a School-wide unit The Urgency of the Arts. In this unit we ask how arts and humanities research and practice can engage with our current socio-political climate, and how might it shape, be necessary and essential in contemporary cultural debates.

The unit introduces you to a diverse range of perspectives, approaches and methods relevant to contemporary practice and thought in the arts and humanities. The delivery, predominantly based on workshops and featuring specialist presentations by leading artists, aims to assist you in recognising, questioning, expanding, and reevaluating your own artistic practices and disciplinary assumptions. Through interactions with staff and students from across the School, as well as through a variety of methodological approaches, you will develop an understanding of the contemporary concerns that shape and influence artistic practice. You will be encouraged to reflect on these as a means to articulate the potential of your own work within the context of broad cultural landscapes and urgent cultural debates.

Terms 1&2

AcrossRCA (30 credits)

Across terms 1 and 2, you will participate in AcrossRCA. This unit aims to support you to meet the challenges of a complex, uncertain and changing world by bringing you together to work collaboratively in cross-programme interdisciplinary teams. In your team you will develop a self-initiated themed project, informed by expertise within and beyond the College. These projects will challenge you to collectively use your intellect and imagination to address key cultural, social, environmental and economic challenges. In doing so, you will develop and reflect on the abilities required to translate knowledge into action, and help demonstrate the contribution that the creative arts can make to our understanding and experience of the world.

Term 3

Independent Research Project (60 credits)

The Independent Research Project offers a point of synthesis through public exhibition, critical reflection and the production of a Print Ready Portfolio. Contracted and visiting staff from the programme support you to acquire advanced understanding of practice-led methodologies, critical reflection, production and presentation. Here, the IRP supports you with the specific conceptual and material demands of exhibiting and sharing their work and uses this to prepare you for the diverse professional practices of contemporary art and design.

AcrossRCA is a compulsory 30-credit unit which is delivered as part of all MA programmes.

Situated at the core of your RCA experience, this ambitious interdisciplinary College-wide unit supports you in responding to the challenges of complex, uncertain and changing physical and digital worlds. Developed in response to student feedback, AcrossRCA creates an exciting opportunity for you to collaborate meaningfully across programmes.

Challenging you to use your imagination and intellect to respond to urgent contemporary themes, this ambitious unit will provide you with the opportunity to:

• make connections across disciplines
• think critically about your creative practice
• develop creative networks within and beyond the College
• generate innovative responses to complex problems
• reflect on how to propose ideas for positive change in local and/or global contexts

AcrossRCA launches with a series of presentations and panel discussions from acclaimed speakers who will introduce the themes and act as inspirational starting points for your collaborative team response.

Delivered online and in-person across two terms, the unit has been designed to complement your disciplinary studies and to provide you with a platform to thrive beyond graduation.