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The Master Artistic Research (MAR) is a two-year study for students working in the field of visual art and/or music. Established in 2009, the structure of the programme has subsequently been created in dialogue with our students, based on what they find most supportive for their practice, most urgent and most interesting. Our goal is to create a situation as ideal as possible for artists to develop their work and maximize their artistic potential.

The MAR closely resembles Master of Fine Arts programmes in its focus on artistic practice. Students are provided with studio space with 24-hour access and are allocated artist-tutors (such as Katarina Zdjelar, Yael Davids) to support their on-going development, as well as an extensive guest programme of lectures, workshops and studio visits with artists like Erwin Wurm, Andrea Fraser, Rory Pilgrim, Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson, Nigel Rolfe, Manon de Boer and Wendelien van Oldenborgh. By emphasizing artistic research, we make more space for artists to develop self-reflexivity in their artistic practice. We invite students to position their practice in relation to wider artistic and non-artistic discourses. Moreover, we encourage artists to expand their knowledge in areas outside the realms of art discourse that are relevant to their individual practice. For some students, this leads to a more theoretically-focused engagement; for others, it leads to working with practitioners from other fields, such as actors (in the work of alumna Aimée Zito Lema), dancers (in the work of Julia Reist) or activists (in the work of Anna Moreno). Scheduled activities are limited to three days a week to allow students time for studio practice.

Noticing that clusters of students had overlapping interests, we have created small-scale artistic research groups to facilitate a more specialized exchange among participants. This year’s groups engage with art and politics, the dynamics of performance, collecting as an artistic and social practice, and sound experiments. Participating students explore these interests collectively through dialogue, reading groups, the making of collaborative work, by visiting relevant exhibitions, performances or lectures and by initiating related events. Each group has on-going guidance from an artist or curator and a theorist with a specialized interest in that area (e.g. curator Galit Eilat and theorist Bram Ieven for Art and Politics). These shared interests also inform the selection of artists, composers, academics, critics and curators for studio visits, lectures and workshops for the MAR’s wider guest programme. (See our Marchive publication, downloadable at www.masterartisticresearch.eu for details.)

The MAR takes an integrated approach to practice and theory. Students do not write a thesis. Instead they undertake one paper per semester that reflects on their artistic development. Guided individually, these provide a place to document and digest new input and analyse new work. Usually written, they can also take the form of video diaries or recordings – a useful alternative for artists with dyslexia.

The MAR encourages collaborative practice. As the MA is itself a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Art [in Dutch: KABK] and the Royal Conservatoire, this facilitates particular opportunities for artists engaging in performance, sound or music. Students have access to all of the conservatory facilities, including sound and recording studios, as well as being able to select courses of interest or engage in interdisciplinary platforms like C.A.S.S. In 2013-14 this will extend into dance and circus arts in conjunction with CodArts, Rotterdam.

The Royal Academy of Art and the Royal Conservatoire are also home to the ArtScience

Interfaculty, which has been offering an interdisciplinary master since 2002. The programme has the dual aim of critically investigating the artistic horizons being opened by recent developments in science and technology, as well as experimenting with new contexts and forms in which art can play a role (see www.kabk.nl). Students of the MAR and ArtScience may attend selected courses at the University of Leiden, as well as those of the PhDArts doctorate in art and design (www.phdarts.eu).

The MAR participates annually in a number of external exhibitions and events. These are initiated by the MAR or follow invitation, such as our recent participation in the Kunstvlaai art festival in Amsterdam; the Expanded Performance programme at Stroom, The Hague; and The Event as Artistic and Political Practice conference at the University of Amsterdam. We undertake excursions to neighbouring countries to see exhibitions of particular interest and have an annual exchange with the Royal College of Art in London.

Applicants to the MAR are asked to articulate which area(s) of their practice they would like to further develop, extend or break open during the Master programme and whether there are new areas they would like to explore. We look for candidates who are hungry to learn and ambitious to fulfil the potential of their artistic practice. Applications must be submitted by May 15, 2013. For more information, see www.masterartisticresearch.eu

Lucy Cotter

Head of the Master Artistic Research