MRes Advanced Practices

Staff & students

Course information

Visual Cultures

1 year full-time or 2 years part-time

Course overview

The MRes in Advanced Practices responds to the growing importance of research within contemporary cultural production.

Professionals and practitioners, be they artists, curators, choreographers, organisers, or others, engage in research and look for ways to circulate it widely. This 'research turn' has been a marked shift in recent years and is increasing in the wake of Covid-19 since audience numbers can no longer be a sole criterion for activity.

The programme in Advanced Practices provides graduate students with an opportunity to invent methodologies, reframe urgencies and reimagine the contexts in which our work is circulating.

Degrees are practice-driven, research-based, and can incorporate projects in progress, collaborations with organisations and platforms or be the opportunity to rethink the circulation and meaning of how and to whom work can communicate itself.

Seminars are taught six times a year, encouraging those working in the field to be able to maintain their work. Participants are artists, curators, organisers, researchers and activists.

There is a collaborative Practice Laboratory focused on an annual thematic that is investigated collaboratively – this is currently taught in weekly online meetings, seminars and guest lectures.

There is a separate MRes seminar for introducing key concepts while the rest of the teaching and Practice Lab is shared with the PhD program.

Contact the department

If you have specific questions about the degree, contact Adnan Madani.

What our students say

Vaida Stepanovaite

Participating in this programme has been one of the most enriching and intensive experiences one could imagine.

Participating in this programme has been one of the most enriching and intensive experiences one could imagine. The programme has allowed me to develop the vocabulary to (at least momentarily) capture the ever-elusive modes of thinking and practicing together in a de-disciplined way. It has as well provided the support and inspiration of a marvellous community of researchers.

Dennis Dizon

The MRes Advanced Practices programme takes exhibition-making and staging and flips it upside-down.

The MRes Advanced Practices programme takes exhibition-making and staging and flips it upside-down. The programme, instead, focuses on the potential of the curatorial, demanding a critical lens on art theory and cultural studies when transformed as practice. The programme's open, transcultural and interdisciplinary format allows for diverse and necessary perspectives, instilling confidence in research approach, strategy and framework.

As an independent art worker, I am constantly applying and integrating what I've learned in Advanced Practices (Curatorial / Knowledge) into my own research and practice. Currently, I run MATTERS OF, experimenting with audience engagement, participation, and collaboration in institutional public programming via networked digital media.

Most significantly, the programme has taught me to reconfigure positions and rethink encounters with art and culture - both online and offline - never only seeing the object, experiencing the white cube or encountering the black box but always asking what brought me/you/us there in the first place.

To develop my practice further, I have received research grants and participated in artist/curatorial residencies, including the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (New York, 2019), Furtherfield (London, 2020) and "Beyond Matter" with Tallinna Kunstihoone (Tallinn, 2020). In 2021, I will be participating in the "Everything Equally Evolved" collective research residency with Onassis Foundation (Athens, 2021), to-be-convened by James Bridle.

Entry requirements

You should normally have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard in a relevant subject.

You might also be considered for some programmes if you aren’t a graduate or your degree is in an unrelated field, but have relevant practice experience and can show that you have the ability to work at postgraduate level.

International qualifications

We accept a wide range of international qualifications. Find out more about the qualifications we accept from around the world.

If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 6.5 with a 6.5 in writing and no element lower than 6.0 to study this programme. If you need assistance with your English language, we offer a range of courses that can help prepare you for postgraduate-level study.

Fees, funding & scholarships

Annual tuition fees

These are the fees for students starting their programme in the 2024/2025 academic year.

Home - full-time: £8430
Home - part-time: £4215
International - full-time: £17690

If your fees are not listed here, please check our postgraduate fees guidance or contact the Fees Office, who can also advise you about how to pay your fees.

It’s not currently possible for international students to study part-time under a student visa. If you think you might be eligible to study part-time while being on another visa type, please contact our Admissions Team for more information.

If you are looking to pay your fees please see our guide to making a payment.

Additional costs

In addition to your tuition fees, you'll be responsible for any additional costs associated with your course, such as buying stationery and paying for photocopying. You can find out more about what you need to budget for on our study costs page.

There may also be specific additional costs associated with your programme. This can include things like paying for field trips or specialist materials for your assignments. Please check the programme specification for more information.

Funding opportunities

Find out more about postgraduate fees and explore funding opportunities. If you're applying for funding, you may be subject to an application deadline.

How to apply

Apply now

You apply directly to Goldsmiths using our online application system.

Before submitting your application you'll need to have:

Details of your education history, including the dates of all exams/assessments
The email address of your referee who we can request a reference from, or alternatively an electronic copy of your academic reference
Contact details of a second referee
A personal statement – This can either be uploaded as a Word Document or PDF, or completed online

Please see our guidance on writing a postgraduate statement

If available, an electronic copy of your educational transcript (this is particularly important if you have studied outside of the UK, but isn’t mandatory)

You'll be able to save your progress at any point and return to your application by logging in using your username/email and password.

When to apply

We accept applications from October for students wanting to start the following September.

We encourage you to complete your application as early as possible, even if you haven't finished your current programme of study. It's very common to be offered a place conditional on you achieving a particular qualification. Late applications will only be considered if there are spaces available.

If you're applying for external funding you may be subject to an application deadline.

Selection process

Admission to many programmes is by interview, unless you live outside the UK. Occasionally we'll make candidates an offer of a place on the basis of their application and qualifications alone.

Find out more about applying.

Careers

Students and candidates expressing their interest in Advanced Practices are often already professionally employed or active at a high level, including museum directors, museum or freelance curators, generators of self-organised spaces, artists and art critics. This means that you could develop an excellent network of professional contacts.

By completing an advanced research degree like this will also open up the possibility of teaching in higher education, and employment in museum research departments.

Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths.

Staff

Professor Irit Rogoff

Irit Rogoff is one of the initiators of the transdisciplinary field of Visual Culture and founder of the department at Goldsmiths. Her initiatives to establish this new field are led by a belief that we must work beyond bodies of inherited disciplinary knowledge and find motivation for knowledge production in the current conditions we are living out.

Dr Bridget Crone

Dr Bridget Crone is a curator and writer. Focussing on the body in material and speculative terms, her work explores questions of “liveness” and the image in relation to performance theory / practice, and the changing relations of body, technology and ecology.

Dr. Adnan Madani

I'm an artist, writer and curator interested in contemporary subjectivities in relation to philosophies of globalization, religious/secular life and intercultural encounter. My focus is on the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, Wittgenstein, Talal Asad and the ethics of esoteric Islam as developed by Massignon. Other areas of specialisation include contemporary South Asian art and popular urban cultures in Pakistan.

Graduate Diploma in Contemporary Art History

The Graduate Diploma in Contemporary Art History is for graduates of other disciplines with an interest in contemporary art and ideas, and who wish to carry out research at higher levels in the fields of visual cultures.

MA Contemporary Art Theory

The MA Contemporary Art Theory is for those with a special interest in contemporary art, and a commitment to theoretical work in the subject.

MA Research Architecture

The MA Research Architecture is for graduates from a range of disciplines who want to examine how architecture can engage with questions of contemporary culture, politics, media, ecology and justice and question whether spatial practice can become a form of research.

MPhil/PhD Advanced Practices

This program will provide you with an opportunity for your own work to engage with the widening horizons of new practices. It will also enable you to invent methodologies, reframe urgencies, and reimagine the contexts for work.

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