Fine Arts - MFA

More about this course

The structure of our MFA postgraduate course is simple and effective. It focuses on improving your practice through projects that you will work on over the academic year.

A supportive environment

You’ll study in well-equipped workshops, informative tutorials and seminars. 

Modern facilities

Our School of Art, Architecture and Design provides you with access to outstanding facilities and equipment through Make Works. We’re famous for our specialist workshops including:

• photography darkrooms
• metalwork and woodwork workshops
• printmaking studios
• textiles workshops
• 3D printing and laser-cutting

Effective learning

Throughout the year, you’ll gain insights into the art and design worlds via guest lecturers from a wide range of public and private sector organisations. There will also be case study reviews, workshops, exhibitions, events and site visits across London and further afield.

The modules on this postgraduate degree will develop your professional practice and collaborative working skills. You’ll also heighten your public profile through the creation of a website and social media profiles that will publicise your work.

Becoming a professional

We’ll show you how to establish a professional framework for your practice that will guide your organisational skills, build your reputation and increase your chances of future commercial success. This includes learning how to propose, research, develop and execute your master’s level project to the highest level of professional standards.

Assessment

If you’re a full-time student then you’ll be assessed at up to three points in a year. Assessment is through coursework only.

Assessment components will include:

• subject knowledge
• analysis
• problem-solving and experimentation
• management of own learning and personal professional development
• skills in professional practice (CV, website, social media and communications)
• exhibition skills, production and installation
• project skills
• the production of online project documentation (including an online evaluative report, online project proposal and annotated research material)
• two finished projects (Major Project and Collaborative Commission)

Your assessors will provide written online feedback on each assessment component at each assessment point.

The marking criteria will be made available to you to ensure you understand the reasons behind the assessment you have been given.

Entry requirements

You will be required to have:

• an upper second-class (2:1) honours degree in an art or design subject

If your application passes all requirements, the University will invite you to choose from a series of interview dates at which interviewers assess your portfolio before making an offer.

Upon receipt of an invitation to choose an interview date, applicants who live too far away for the interview may request submission of a digital portfolio.

Relevant professional qualifications or extensive professional experience will also be considered.

Accreditation of Prior Learning

Any university-level qualifications or relevant experience you gain prior to starting university could count towards your course at London Met. Find out more about applying for Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL).

English language requirements

To study a degree at London Met, you must be able to demonstrate proficiency in the English language. If you require a Student visa you may need to provide the results of a Secure English Language Test (SELT) such as Academic IELTS. This course requires you to meet our standard requirements.

If you need (or wish) to improve your English before starting your degree, the University offers a Pre-sessional Academic English course to help you build your confidence and reach the level of English you require.

Modular structure

The modules listed below are for the academic year 2023/24 and represent the course modules at this time. Modules and module details (including, but not limited to, location and time) are subject to change over time.

Year 1 modules include:

Art Project Development (core, 40 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Thursday morning

The focus of the FA7056 Art Project Development module is the development of a personal art practice that establishes the basis for your output in your major art project, which will be developed into a substantial body of work for public presentation (if appropriate).

You will be expected to propose and test out a range of art propositions to identify and develop your art practice. You will explore approaches to work through technical and conceptual explorations, contextualising your art practice in group presentations, seminars and discussions. You will be encouraged to participate in outward-facing art activities, such as exhibitions, talks, workshops and live projects, which will enable you to understand through direct experience some of the complexities of the social and cultural functions related to your field of art study.

You will be encouraged to understand your work in the contexts of contemporary networks with opportunities for a presentation and reception of research and practice outcomes. The development undertaken in this module will make use of the learning achieved in the concurrent (or for part-time students, prior) module FA7053 Critical Discourse & Analysis for Art Practice.

The aims of the FA7056 Art Project Development module are for you to:

• explore and question art conventions and set your own agenda as an artist
• identify your art ambitions in demonstrating the skills and ideas required to propose and complete a significant art project for exhibition
• develop the ability to write a professional art project proposal for exhibition
• acquire the necessary self-reflective skills to tackle the challenges and demands of a contemporary art practice

The overall aim of the module is to support you to acquire or enhance the necessary conceptual, professional and practical skills to develop your art practice towards completion of an ambitious major art project by the end of the course.

Read full details

Collective Art Practice (core, 20 credits)

This module currently runs:

• spring semester - Monday afternoon
• spring semester - Monday afternoon

FA7055 Collective Art Practice is a studio practice module offering you another opportunity for making art in studio, still using wider peer group interaction and collaboration towards a specific art goal – but this time an art exhibition around a socially responsible theme devised and agreed by you and all your module cohort peers. As ever, the module provides you with the opportunity to combine agility and adaptability in your own artmaking with a core underlying philosophy of collaboration. You will again draw upon new aspects of your art practice to generate a professional opportunity via the art exhibition. The module contributes to the MFA award it serves by providing the second show in a formal sequence of three art exhibitions over the duration of the course.

The aims of the FA7055 Collective Art Practice module are for you to:

• acquire confidence and resilience in negotiating and agreeing with peers an inclusive and socially responsible theme for a group art project;
• devise in a team a project plan to manage an art exhibition arising from a negotiated group art project proposal;
• develop your ability to argue for a group art proposition to art organisers and other artists;
• foster a team ethic in which all group members participate in project tasks equally and inclusively;
• provide you with the collaborative opportunity to organise a live event.

The overall aim of the module is to establish and embed common studio practice principles around and towards art exhibition and display in a collective, collaborative and socially responsible way led entirely by the student group itself.

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Critical Discourse & Analysis for Art Practice (core, 40 credits)

This module currently runs:

• all year (September start) - Monday morning

The FA7053 Critical Discourse & Analysis for Art Practice module supports you to identify research questions and methodologies appropriate to your art practice. Through this module’s seminars, lectures and tutorials, you will interrogate and discuss your self-directed art research project. All research for and testing of art practice undertaken during this module is intended as both preparation for and complementary to work on the art project or art studio modules and will explore connections between art research, art thinking and art making with an emphasis on locating critical contexts for study through the practice of art.

The aims of the FA7053 Critical Discourse & Analysis for Art Practice module are for you to:

• develop the necessary postgraduate study and research skills to tackle the intellectual challenges and demands of your postgraduate art project work;
• describe how plurality, diversity and social justice work in the practice of art;
• establish your own independent art research working strategy and articulate the critical context associated with your field of art practice.

The overall aim of the module is to support you to acquire or enhance the necessary conceptual and practical research skills to inform and frame your art practice and to underpin the development of an ambitious major art project by the end of the course.

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Major Art Project (core, 60 credits)

This module currently runs:

• summer studies - Thursday afternoon
• summer studies - Thursday morning

The FA7P01 Major Art Project module frames the culmination of your output on the MFA Fine Art or the MA Public Art and Performance, enabling you to balance creative and intellectual ambition with the rigours of professional practice and academic research expectations.

The focus of the FA7P01 Major Art Project module is the production of a major body of work that has evolved from a project proposal in the FA7056 Art Project Development module. The FA7P01 Major Art Project module is based upon a concurrent or prior programme of research and contextually informed practice and practice-based enquiry at an advanced level in the FA7053 Critical Discourse & Analysis for Art Practice module.

This module supports the evolution of your subject-specific and professional expertise and develops a sustainable practice for the external fields of art research and art engagement. You will build upon previous projects, processes and explorations and continue to contextualise their work through presentations, tutorials and group critiques.

The outcome of FA7P01 Major Art Project is intended be a significant body of work that will enable you successfully to progress your career.

The module aims to:

• empower you to achieve or exceed your ambitions and to develop and display the creative skills and confidence required to go on to further study of art and/or to professional art practice;
• enable you to complete and so realise in group art exhibition a major art project from a proposal planned and developed earlier in the course
• provide you with the necessary evaluative skills to tackle the challenges and demands of the changing nature of art;
• open up to you a prime opportunity to work responsively and responsibly in a team with other artists, organising an art exhibition open to the public;
• encourage you to engage with other artists in dialogue, idea exchange, art experimentation, heuristic learning and professional practice.

The overall aim of the module is to provide you with the opportunity to expand your practice by realising a major self-initiated and self-directed professional project. It aims to equip you with the knowledge and the practical, theoretical and conceptual skills and competencies required to function effectively as a professional within the art sector. It is based on the preliminary project work undertaken in other modules and provides you with a focused period of time to pursue your professional aims.

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Sustainable Art Practice (core, 20 credits)

This module currently runs:

• autumn semester - Monday afternoon

FA7054 Sustainable Art Practice is a studio practice module offering you an opportunity for making art in studio, using wider peer group interaction and collaboration towards a specific art goal – an art exhibition under a socially responsible and environmentally sustainable ‘umbrella’ curatorial theme prescribed by the course. The module provides you with the opportunity to combine agility and adaptability in your own art-making with a core underlying course philosophy around sustainability in art, while establishing a working relationship with the other artists on the course. You will draw upon new aspects of your own art practice to generate a professional opportunity via the art exhibition. The module contributes to the MFA award it serves by providing the first show in a formal sequence of three art exhibitions over the duration of the course.

The aims of the FA7054 Sustainable Art Practice module are to:

• ground your art ambitions in a socially responsible framework;
• provide you with a themed context ‘umbrella’ context under which you can help your peers build a group art project;
• foster a team ethic in which all group members participate in group art project tasks inclusively, equally and fairly;
• give you the collaborative opportunity to organise a live event.

The overall aim of the module is to establish and embed common studio practice principles around and towards art display in a way that is environmentally sustainable and collaborative.

Read full details

Where this course can take you

The MFA qualification helps you establish yourself as an artist or designer, either self-employed or working professional. You can use the experience gained to self-organise and network to win contracts, commissions and shows. Our professional practice and networking module will help you learn how to do this.

You can also use the MFA qualification to help you to find work with major employers in the art and design sector such as:

• Artsadmin
• Pentagram
• The Tate
• The Royal Academy
• Tom Dixon
• Arts Council England
• Heatherwick’s
• The Venice Biennale
• Sotheby’s
• Conrans

You can also use the MFA to go on to study for an art and design PhD. A PhD can help you get into a higher education art or design career to teach or research at art universities all over the world.

Important information about this course

We're committed to continuously improving our degree courses to ensure our students receive the best possible learning experience. Many of the courses in our School of Art, Architecture and Design are currently under review for 2023-24 entry. We encourage you to apply as outlined in the how to apply section of this page and if there are any changes to your course we will contact you. All universities review their courses regularly and this year we are strengthening our art, architecture and design courses to better reflect the needs of employers and ensure you're well-equipped for your future career.

Additional costs

Please note, in addition to the tuition fee there may be additional costs for things like equipment, materials, printing, textbooks, trips or professional body fees.

Additionally, there may be other activities that are not formally part of your course and not required to complete your course, but which you may find helpful (for example, optional field trips). The costs of these are additional to your tuition fee and the fees set out above and will be notified when the activity is being arranged.

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When to apply

You are advised to apply as early as possible as applications will only be considered if there are places available on the course.