Museum and Gallery Studies MA

This course is ideal if you are interested in pursuing imaginative, interdisciplinary, international museum study. It will:

• advance your knowledge of contemporary developments in this vibrant and complex area of academia and the cultural sector; and
• provide you with transferable skills in critical-theoretical inquiry and creative research practice.

The underlying philosophy of the Museum and Gallery Studies MA is to do things differently – to offer students a critical-creative vision of and approach to museum study, questioning and challenging conventions of the institution and the field.

The course interrogates contemporary issues and practices, including collection, interpretation, exhibition, space, place and the city, audiences and communities, controversy and contingency, institutional purpose, scenario planning and sustainable futures.

You will study a series of dedicated taught modules that are concerned with issues of critical theory and analysis, research methodologies and creative practice. You will be expected to conduct research around the broad themes and subjects addressed by each module. This research will allow you to tailor your own path of study according to your particular interests and future aspirations.

Module collaborations

The modules on this course have been developed in collaboration with several museums:

The Ideas and Institutions module is co-delivered and co-hosted by the Natural History Museum.

The Material Thinking and Creative Practice module has been developed and is co-delivered in collaboration with the National Maritime Museum.

The Invention and Experimentation module has been developed and is co-delivered in collaboration with the Museum of London.

The Collaboration and Craft module has been developed in consultation with Kingston Museum and Heritage Service.

Find out more about the modules on this course.

Creative practice

The Museum and Gallery Studies MA is a critical and creative practice-based postgraduate programme of academic study. It is ambitious in its aim to:

• re-imagine the relationships between academy and profession; and
• explore the implications and applications of this approach to accepted ideas of academic museum studies and museum practice.

Ideas of, and approaches to, practice are therefore central to the course, as are opportunities for engaging directly in experimental and creative practice-based research in both institutional and more-than-institutional contexts.

Located within the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, the MA programme of study engages across artistic, urban planning, architectural and design practices as offering alternative creative approaches to museum study and practice. Our genuinely interdisciplinary approach to creative practice is one of the unique features of our curriculum.

A place-based approach

The programme develops through a strongly place-based approach to the contemporary museum. The broad aim is to:

• offer a more sustainable, place-sensitive approach to our understandings of museums, museum practices and their academic study; and
• further open the museum up to the world in an ethical engagement towards more-than-institutional futures.

Our place-based approach also draws on our location in London as a world city and museum metropolis. Place, locality, ecology and community are essential to museums and museum practices wherever they may be found and from whichever country our students might come from. The course aspires to be international in its scope and vision whilst always grounded in a sympathetic and progressive sense of place.

Please note that this is an indicative list of modules and is not intended as a definitive list. Those listed here may also be a mixture of core and optional modules.

Modules

• Ideas and Institutions

• Ideas and Institutions

  Museums and galleries are highly prominent features of the contemporary cultural landscape. They have experienced significant investment in their intellectual and physical development over the past 20 to 40 years. To some this has been a 'Golden Age', to others it represents an age of great uncertainty, even malaise. This module establishes a progressive interdisciplinary framework for critically and creatively questioning museums and galleries as ideas, institutions and as a field of academic inquiry.

  Download full module guide (PDF).

  
   
• Material Thinking and Creative Practice

• Material Thinking and Creative Practice

  Research and practice are at the heart of museums, galleries and heritage. Although claims have been made for the multi- and inter-disciplinary natures of these related fields, the promise of genuine interdisciplinarity is hampered by an ongoing distinction made between 'academic' practice and 'professional' practice. This module attempts to bridge this divide using a toolbox of interdisciplinary approaches to doing creative research – creative research being proposed as the main activity of all practitioners in the fields of museums, galleries and heritage, regardless of where they may be positioned or situated within institutional or academic contexts.

  Download full module guide (PDF).

  
   
• Invention and Experimentation

• Invention and Experimentation

  A largely rational, ordered approach to interpretation, exhibition and display has been central to the conception of the modern museum and gallery.

  This module introduces new ways to critically engage with exhibition through experimentation with new practices and new platforms for communication. It argues that the museum's potential as a transformative media rests in its ongoing ability to re-imagine exhibition and communication through ideas of invention, experimentation and an ethical engagement with the world. It draws on various features of creative practice, including aspects of modern and contemporary art such as collage, assemblage and installation, film, illustration and design.

  This module has been developed and is co-delivered in collaboration with the Museum of London (MoL). Students will be set the task of responding to a real brief that MoL staff are currently working towards through a creative treatment or scenography in the form of a portfolio.

  Download full module guide (PDF).

  
   
• Collaboration and Craft

• Collaboration and Craft

  Museums and heritage are key landmarks in the everyday heritage of place and have become prominent features of regeneration schemes. So physically concrete do they seem that the contingency and uncertainty of the planning process is often overlooked. This module draws on ideas of collaboration and craft as positive and necessary to the sustainability of the contemporary museum; re-conceptualising museum planning as crafting a more ecological, place-based approach to future museum making.

  It provides an opportunity for students to critically examine planning practices and develop their own museum brief through scenario planning – very often the most creative part of the planning process. The module's assessment is based on the living landscapes of Kingston itself and Kingston Museum as a key cultural resource and part of that landscape.

  Download full module guide (PDF)

  
   
• Dissertation

• Dissertation

  The dissertation can be pursued in two ways:

  • a 12–15,000 written essay, or
  • the creative project option – under this option you write a 5,000 critical-reflective essay supporting a piece of creative practice of your choosing.

  Download full module guide (PDF).

  
   
• International Study Visit (non-credit module)

• International Study Visit (non-credit module)

  Each year our MA students have the opportunity to participate in a week-long not-for-credit international study visit. In 2011/12 we are visiting Berlin; a wonderful opportunity to visit a range of museums, galleries and sites in a fascinating European city. The intinerary is developed collaboratively between staff and students with plenty of time for personal exploration. Places that might be visited include the Neues Museum, Jewish Museum, Topographie des Terrors, Hamburger Bahnhof, Altes Museum, Deutches Historisches Museum, Reichstag, and Neue Nationalgalerie.
  
  Download the module guide (PDF).

  
   

The Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture teaches this course. Find out more...