Museum and Gallery Studies BA(Hons)

Why choose this course?

Museums and galleries have recently emerged as central sites of the creative and heritage industries, dealing not just with the presentation of artistic works and historical artefacts, but also with issues of regional and national identity, and social, economic and cultural regeneration. This half-field offering is ideal if you want to engage with these multidisciplinary issues.

Museum and Gallery Studies at Kingston is designed to equip graduates with the ability to move into the professional context of museums, galleries, and the wider heritage and cultural sector, in areas such as curating, collections, exhibitions, education and interpretation, publishing and marketing. Depending how you combine it with other degree options, many more opportunities will arise, thanks to the balance of subject-specific teaching, study and presentation skills and self-initiated research and inquiry.

You will study Museum and Gallery Studies as a joint honours degree in combination with another subject. See the course combinations section for more details.

What will you study?

Year 1 introduces you to the historical development of museums and galleries in the context of social and cultural change, and the major philosophies, purposes and functions that constitute contemporary museums and galleries of art and design. Through case studies and visits, you will examine the role and significance of museums and galleries as institutions, and the objects, collections, spaces, audiences and activities associated with them. Alongside this you will take a module which will introduce you to the core academic skills of visual research and academic writing.

Year 2 enables you to research and analyse key themes in greater depth. Modules focus on the experience of engaging with art and design in a museum and gallery context through a series of critical approaches to visiting, audience, space and experience. You will also analyse art museums and galleries as ideas, institutions and a series of practices by interrogating key texts and themes. You will also strengthen your research skills in a module which allows you to form your own arguments in an extended essay.

Year 3 focuses on the future of museums and galleries, with modules exploring the different ways in which the art and design museum may be considered to have value in contemporary society, and the critical exploration and creative development of different scenarios for institutions. You also have the opportunity to undertake a dissertation as the culmination of your undergraduate study.

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.

Year 1

• Museums and Galleries: An Introduction
• Art and its Institutions
• Visual Research: An Introduction

Year 2

• Experiencing Art and Design
• Critical Museology
• Doing Research: Critical Approaches and Creative Practice

Year 3

• Valuing Museums and Galleries
• Museum and Gallery Futures
• Dissertation

• Dissertation

  The dissertation module involves individual research, organisation and development of a subject of personal interest. You will develop:

  • critical and analytical thought; and
  • the ability to sustain an argument using research and writings skills.