This new MA in Social Sculpture program offers practitioners from arts and non-arts backgrounds the unique opportunity to develop interdisciplinary, ecologically and socially engaged work, informed by reflection on the social sculpture ideas and work of Joseph Beuys and related thinkers and practitioners. All this work benefits greatly from the research culture of the Social Sculpture Research Unit (SSRU), in whose forums, projects and presentations by social sculpture specialists, the masters' students participate.
Other philosophies and interdisciplinary practices related to social sculpture are also explored. These include: connective aesthetics; participatory and socially engaged practices; phenomenological and eco-philosophies, environmental and ecological art; interventionist actions; cross artform work; direct democracy processes and other forms of work toward an ecologically sustainable future. Students explore different modes of thinking, new strategies and methodologies of engagement and the social sculpture ideas through their own practice. Collaborative and other strategies are introduced in a 'Creative Strategies' module that is shared by all four programs. The histories, philosophies and practices of social sculpture are studied in a separate, specialist social sculpture module. Each student also undertakes a self-determined practice-based research project that incorporates appropriate theory. This lays the basis for their final Major Project.
Throughout the program students and tutors meet regularly in an MA FORUM to discuss each others work and relevant issues. The four programs all share an emphasis on location, context and audience. This creates a common thread for the annual 'festival' of MA work: a culmination of the program in which the Major Project work is shared with a wider public. Social sculpture students may negotiate to link their Major Project to their home context.
The MA in Social Sculpture can be taken full-time over one calendar year (Sept - Sept) or part-time over two years.
The MA in Social Sculpture offers students
- a unique opportunity to explore the contemporary relevance of the social sculpture ideas and work of Joseph Beuys
- a space for experimentation and reflection
- a specialist research unit that is linked to an international community of practitioners, activists and thinkers (see www.social-sculpture.org)
- first rate teaching* by artists involved in social sculpture and related practices www.exchange-values.org
- exchanges with the Bauhaus, University of Weimar in Germany
24 hour/365 day access to excellent facilities
SSRU patrons: Professor Caroline Tisdall and Johannes Stüttgen
For more information please contact:
Postgraduate Administrator
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 484992
Email: pgah@brookes.ac.uk
School of Arts and Humanities
Oxford Brookes University
Richard Hamilton Building
Headington Hill
Headington Campus
Oxford OX3 0BP
http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/artandmusic
*teaching rated excellent (QAA 23/24), rated in top four in the country in the Guardian league tables over the past three years.
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