International Master of Fine Art

To imagine artistic knowledge driving change, a critical classroom needs virtual, intellectual and tactile tools to coexist and be recombined. As we question the role, methodologies and possible qualities of visual art facing our time sensitive complex challenges, as we explore its potential to resist, create and become, we wonder: could artistic research propel new agency and artistic entrepreneurship be the new punk rock?

The ability to create doesn’t belong to the artist alone, it lies in the sciences as well as in philosophy and other disciplines. Based on the possibility of speaking to each other, building common ground: acting together is a creative act. Only by collaborating and cooperating can we tackle and understand complexity and the increasing social divides. 

We are searching for students with the courage to push the boundaries of art; students who are ready to take risks; who try, together with us, to understand what it means to be in this world and respond to today’s urgencies and inequalities with the means of art. We are searching for students who aren´t afraid of cross-pollination between academic domains; students who strive to explore artistic intelligences and put a multiplicity of practices into motion. In the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, we focus on artistic research and artistic entrepreneurship as an extension of studio practice, and as an undertaking of acting together to inspire people to tackle the challenges society faces. We argue for an artistic agency that involves and engages new combinations across disciplines and sectors and new forms of cooperation among researchers and artists—theory, culture and technologies. As resistance against monocultures. 

The Trondheim Academy of Fine Art is a department at NTNU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. It is part of one of Scandinavia’s largest universities frequented by 40,000 students and over 12,000 employees. For students in contemporary art, this unique situation provides exciting opportunities and ever growing potential to be explored.

The International MFA program is a two-year program developed for artists to get acquainted with emerging forms of artistic entrepreneurship and to become familiar with both fundamental concepts and advanced practices in artistic research. Together, students and faculty at KIT set out to revisit and rethink the role of art in society, while critically engaging in societal and environmental challenges, modes of trans-disciplinary collaboration and experimentation to further knowledge transfer and societal transformation. We consider learning and un-learning a shared responsibility of both students and faculty. 

Current teaching faculty comprises of artists, activists, performance artists and educators working across the fields of material and spatial practices, painting and beyond, art and common space, digital performance and telematic improvisation, visual intervention, art theory and documentary practices. This currently includes Alex Murray-Leslie (Chicks on Speed), Nabil Achmed (INTERPRT), Annett Busch (Women on Aeroplanes), Felix Gmelin, Anne-Karin Furunes, Samrridhi Kukreja, Jacob Jessen, Florian Schneider, Liz Dom. In addition, the environment is enriched by a number of PhD students: Mohamed A. Gawad, Ayodele Arigbabu, Mari Bastashevski, Mohammad Bayesteh, Prerna Bishnoi, Katherine Butcher, Oskar Johanson, Olga Lucko, Yaniya Mikhalina, Kristian Byskov Rasmussen, Hilde Stiegler Rubecksen, Mari Sanden, Margarita Torrijos and Joen Vedel.

We offer tuition free studies for students within EU/EEA/EFTA. Teaching language of all courses is English. We offer work placement with partners in our extensive international network and in research projects of the department. We offer Exchange and international residencies as an active member of the KUNO network, an international exchange of the Nordic and Baltic Fine Arts academies and numerous international institutions of higher education in the arts within the Erasmus+ program.

Applications are now open at NTNU. Please read the required documentation section first. Additional information about portfolio submission can be found in the application guidelines.

Deadlines: All applicants: March 1, 2024. For more information, please visit here. Email: adm [​at​] kit.ntnu.no.