Tavistock Place
PL4 8AT Plymouth
England
Arts University Plymouth is welcoming applications for MA Museum Studies, to explore the role of museums in the context of postcolonial approaches to collecting, cultural education and shared heritage.
Starting in autumn 2023, students will reimagine the role of the museum within contemporary socio-political debates. Working in close collaboration with The Box, Plymouth’s award-winning museum, art collection galleries and archives (also home to the South West Film & Television Archive), students of MA Museum Studies will explore emergent models of socially-engaged practice, community building, and creative education as a productive and mobilising force that is now vital in a rapidly transforming museum sector.
Students will explore thematics that include decolonisation and the repatriation of objects, distributed digital archives, the educational role of museums, and diversifying collections and audiences, situated in a city and region with a pervasive colonial and military heritage. MA Museum Studies at Arts University Plymouth builds on the context of Plymouth as a centre for contemporary art and culture, in light of recent events such Mayflower 400 (2020), Another Crossing: Artists Revisit the Mayflower Voyage (2022) and British Art Show 9 (2022–23).
Arts University Plymouth will support students to pursue their own research directions, which could include: examining the complex process of design, museum curatorship and interpretation; interrogating theories of exhibition and display, audiences and museology; and initiating research projects focused on the practical, pedagogical and theoretical questions underpinning museum education and audience outreach.
In addition to opportunities to collaborate directly with experts from The Box, a museum in a distinct partnership with Arts University Plymouth, students will also work with a range of regional and national museums and collections including Tate St Ives, Tate Britain Archives, and RAMM Exeter.
The MA will prepare graduates for a wide range of roles in museums, curation, heritage and arts management, as well as for further postgraduate research. Join the new MA Museum Studies at the best arts university for student satisfaction in the UK, as voted by students in the National Student Survey 2022.
A new kind of arts university since 1856
Arts University Plymouth is a new kind of art school for the 21st century, preparing graduates who are uniquely placed to provide creative solutions to the complex global challenges of our times.
The university is widely regarded as a catalyst for individual, societal and ecological transformation, continually striving to deliver innovative and distinctive learning, teaching and research through a unique interdisciplinary ecosystem of materials, processes, technologies and knowledge exchange. All of this is wrapped within a city that is brimming with creative confidence and cultural opportunities, nestled between the wild beauty of the Atlantic Ocean and Dartmoor.
Together with students, staff and stakeholders, Arts University Plymouth is setting a future vision based upon solution-focussed teaching and research, sustainable growth, and a commitment to impactful social justice and ecological change through people, culture and place.
For anybody considering MA study, academics will be on campus from 10am to 2pm on Saturday March 11 and Saturday June 24 for postgraduate open days, which offer an ideal opportunity to explore a community of makers and thinkers, ask questions and visualise what it’s like to study at Arts University Plymouth.
Last year Arts University Plymouth (formerly Plymouth College of Art) secured University Title and in the same month also won Best Small or Specialist University at the 2022 WhatUni Student Choice Awards. The WUSCA Small or Specialist category celebrates the overall experience of students, with a focus on lecturers and teaching quality, the Students’ Union experience, facilities and student life, and is determined based on the reviews of currently enrolled students.
