MA Art & Ecology

Goldsmiths MA Art & Ecology is now accepting applications for September 2024 entry. This innovative fifteen-month studio-based postgraduate programme is designed for artists and graduates who want to engage through practice in meaningful and transformative ways with the most pressing ecological questions of our time.

The MA Art & Ecology invites artists to develop a self-directed project in response to urgent ecological challenges, including climate breakdown, pollution, biodiversity loss and environmental and social justice. We welcome artistic practices that may involve painting, sculpture, printmaking, installation, performance, art writing, textiles, digital media and video, as well as food production, rewilding, inter-species care and co-dependence, sustainable data, citizen and expert science, waste management, somatic work and ritual. The MA Art & Ecology encourages applications from artists working in any ecological context, from rural to ocean habitats, and from social movements to scientific settings. The programme’s location in South East London, with proximity to some of the world’s leading artistic and scientific institutions, also provides an opportunity to focus on urban ecologies as dynamic “more-than-human worlds”.

The MA Art & Ecology provides an exceptional opportunity for artists to learn skills, acquire knowledge and build networks that will be essential to propelling their professional artistic practice after graduation. Students are supported by the Programme Leader Dr Ros Gray and Studio Lecturer Dr Jol Thoms, with contributing faculty including Dr Barby Asante, Louise Ashcroft, Dr Anna Colin, Saskia Olde Wolbers and Dr Edgar Schmitz. Recent and upcoming visiting tutors include Dani Admiss, Ackroyd & Harvey, Kent Chan, Gaëlle Choisne, Tyler Coburn, Cooking Sections, Suzanne Dhaliwal, Taru Elfving, FRAUD, Feral Practice, Keira Greene, Olivier Marboeuf, Harun Morrison, Uriel Orlow, Lucy Orta, Lucia Pietroiusti, Filipa Ramos, Anna Santamauro, Shela Sheikh, Himali Singh Soin, Åsa Sonjasdotter, Joseph Walsh and many others.

The Department of Art offers world-class art-production facilities, from Graphics & Time-Based Media and 3D printing to Constructed Textiles, Photography and Moving Image Capture, Ceramics, Woodwork, Metal and Casting, Print & Dye, Fine Art Print, Stitch & Fabric, a Pigment Garden and Allotment. The Goldsmiths Art Research Garden and Laboratory is in development and students also benefit from the Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art. The programme teaches best professional practice through talks and workshops led by practitioners that provide real-world insights into the kinds of skills, negotiations and knowledge necessary to realising a successful expanded practice. Students on the programme have benefitted from opportunities arising from the MA Art & Ecology’s partnerships and collaborations with national and international art institutions, museums and environmental organisations, including CIRCA, Contemporary Art Archipelago, Delfina Foundation, the Horniman Museum and Gardens, New Contemporaries and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Through the development of their artistic project, students will realise a public exhibition and disseminate their research process through a project journal that is published online in The Journal of Art & Ecology. Studio practice is taught through an intensive programme of individual tutorials, group crits, workshops and study visits. Students also participate in an artist-led collaborative experimental laboratory.

Priority applications deadline: February 3, 2024.