Master Fine Arts information day

Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) is one of the most progressive art schools in Europe, with 2,800 enrolled students. Its diverse range of degree and research programs include fine arts, design, film, music, dance, theater, art education, media, and transdisciplinary studies.

An information day dedicated to the ZHdK MFA is scheduled on November 18 for anyone interested in applying. The head of the program will provide general information about the MFA, the students will give you a tour of the studios, and you will be able to visit the facilities under staff supervision. On November 18 and 19, MFA faculty members will take a look at candidates’ portfolios and give advice on how to apply for the Master’s program.

The ZHdK MFA focuses on the deepening, professionalization and contextualization of its students’ artistic practice, combining knowledge and theories across disciplines and methodologies. Faculty and students form a dedicated community of established and emerging practitioners. The main objectives are to provide a supportive environment for students to thrive as artists, and to help them develop a set of skills—hands-on and intellectual—to consolidate their careers. The MFA is also a place to expand one’s network by getting together with interesting figures from the field of local and global contemporary culture; opportunities to connect arise within the close-knit environment of the ZHdK, the city of Zurich, and Switzerland, as well as internationally.

As you integrate into a body of international students, you are encouraged to cluster into smaller groups and seminar group courses—at times guided by one or more tutors or convoked through a process of self-organization, coordinated by you and other students.

Beginning with your initial activities (formal, conceptual), you are invited to join challenging workshops in order to experience the potential of different materials and media. Well-equipped set-ups for photo, video, sound, and 3D printing as well as for wood, metal, plaster, textile, ceramics, printmaking, etc., are open to all students. In parallel, you will attend seminars where you can learn about socially engaged art and its legacy, inspiration/appropriation/theft, post-human ecologies, radical visions and the language of resistance, artist writing and filming, display, repetition as strategy, artistic research, imaginaries in transition, and much more.

The program comprises not only individual projects, seminars, group tutorials, and art talk series but study trips to international venues as well. In fall of 2019 for example, MFA students have the opportunity to visit Venice and the 58thBiennale, and to participate in our “October School” in Mexico City dedicated to art in public space, an initiative hosted by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. The October School brings together art universities from around the world, such as Shiv Nadar University in New Delhi and the University of Johannesburg. The ZHdK is also the initiator of a Global Shared Campus with active international exchange programs, in particular with various partners from art universities in East and South East Asia.

If you choose to enroll in the MFA program, your artistic practice may be studio-based or extend into a post-studio dimension, shaped by a multiplicity of analogue and digital media within today’s post-internet paradigm. Your work will be presented on various occasions—and ultimately at the final degree show, which represents the culmination of your studies.

Faculty: Donatella Bernardi, Swetlana Heger, Christian Hübler, Dominique Lämmli, Uriel Orlow, Marie-France Rafael, Nils Röller, Christoph Schenker, Erik Steinbrecher, Yvonne Wilhelm.

Among visiting faculty members and guests in 2018/2019/2020: Eric Baudelaire, Sabian Baumann, Mathieu Copeland, Gioia Dal Molin, Philipp Ekardt, Jörg Heiser, Stefanie Hessler, Kapwani Kiwanga, Elise Lammer, Quinn Latimer, Samuel Leuenberger, Jonas Lund, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Leila Peacock, Elodie Pong, Tabita Rezaire, Dorothee Richter, Rory Rowan, Hinrich Sachs.

Head of MFA: Donatella Bernardi
Director, Department of Art & Media: Swetlana Heger

Program of the information day
Deadline for online MFA application: March 15, 2020

Contact: studium.dkm [​at​] zhdk.ch