Ceramics & Glass

The spectrum of enquiry is driven by live and studio projects. We’ll explore archives and collections to understand, question and reinterpret how the histories and traditions of our disciplines inform contemporary culture. Our relationship with site, communities and the built environment provides a framework for developing proposals. Specialist tutor-led group work focuses on areas such as metaphorical and phenomenological meaning within materiality. Finally, you’ll explore design-led ideas through object use, and the systems of production that they emerge from.

Drawing on our diverse network of contacts within the subject specialisms, lectures, artist talks and professional practice seminars from industry leaders are combined with field trips and practical skill sessions to support independent learning. Studio culture is nurtured within dedicated facilities that offer opportunities for collaborative and cross-disciplinary approaches – all aimed at developing the next generation of leading Ceramics & Glass graduates. Alongside programme-specific delivery, theory and contextual studies will be delivered across the Applied Art disciplines, situating and contextualising a material-led practice's thinking (and making) into the broader world.

There will be several opportunities to collaborate with others, but at a minimum, your programme will include 290 contact hours and 1,510 independent study hours. Contact hours can consist of lectures, seminars, tutorials, critical forums and workshops, among other types of teaching delivery.

Your programme's teaching types include briefings, projects, tutorials, seminars, lectures, critical forums, technical inductions, workshops, offsite visits and blended learning.

The programme is delivered across three terms and includes a combination of programme, School and College units.

Term 1

Term 1 begins with the Interrogating Your Practice and Deconstructing Assumptions (45 credits) unit, which focuses on developing tools for deconstructing and critiquing your own practice and previous methods/approaches and providing new contexts and directions for your work. Emphasis is placed on inviting new thoughts and progressive ideas through which to develop a ceramics and glass practice. During the unit you will be offered opportunities to explore techniques, collections, and environments alongside new modes of thinking to challenge and expand your perception of Ceramics & Glass practice.

Across Terms 1 and 2, you will participate in AcrossRCA, the College-wide unit. See below for more details.

Term 2

Over the course of the Developing Methodologies (30 credits) unit, you will explore themes situated within wider material culture, particularly those revealed by self-directed study via the lens of a Ceramics & Glass practice. Through experimentation and research, they will establish and develop the methodologies that will define your emerging practice. Developments and lines of enquiry formulated in Interrogating Your Practice and Deconstructing Assumptions, and through the Territory, will act as a background for producing a body of work. You will be required to write your proposal and develop the summative project for the Independent Research Project by the middle of this unit.

In Term 2 all School of Arts & Humanities students will participate in the Urgency of the Arts (15 credits), School-wide unit. Through this unit we ask: what does arts and humanities research and practice have to offer in our current socio-political climate? The unit introduces you to diverse perspectives, approaches, and practices relevant to contemporary practice and thought in the Arts & Humanities. The delivery is devised to help you identify and query your practices and disciplinary assumptions through encounters with others and within the various practices undertaken by students in the School and raise awareness around contemporary concerns. You will be supported in understanding the ramifications of your own work and practice within a broad cultural context, and to recognise its many potentially unintended readings and consequences.

Term 3

The Independent Research Project (60 credits) offers a point of synthesis through exhibition, critical reflection and portfolio production. The programme will support you in acquiring an advanced understanding of practice-led methodologies, critical reflection, production, and presentation. You will be supported in understanding practice-led methodologies, critical reflection, and presentation. The IRP supports you with the specific conceptual and material demands of exhibiting and sharing their work and uses this to prepare you for the diverse professional practices of contemporary art and design.

AcrossRCA is a compulsory 30-credit unit which is delivered as part of all MA programmes.

Situated at the core of your RCA experience, this ambitious interdisciplinary College-wide unit supports you in responding to the challenges of complex, uncertain and changing physical and digital worlds. Developed in response to student feedback, AcrossRCA creates an exciting opportunity for you to collaborate meaningfully across programmes.

Challenging you to use your imagination and intellect to respond to urgent contemporary themes, this ambitious unit will provide you with the opportunity to:

• make connections across disciplines
• think critically about your creative practice
• develop creative networks within and beyond the College
• generate innovative responses to complex problems
• reflect on how to propose ideas for positive change in local and/or global contexts

AcrossRCA launches with a series of presentations and panel discussions from acclaimed speakers who will introduce the themes and act as inspirational starting points for your collaborative team response.

Delivered online and in-person across two terms, the unit has been designed to complement your disciplinary studies and to provide you with a platform to thrive beyond graduation.