Master in Fine Arts Social involvement – artistic profile – informed by art pedagogy

The three majors are supplemented with extensive personal artistic mentorships and collective work with classmates, lecturers and the extended academic staff of the programme.
The Lucerne School of Art and Design offers a unique range of sound and video studios and is very well equipped in workshops for printing, textiles and 3D (textiles, metal, plastic, wood etc.) – all of which are available to students on the Master of Arts in Fine Arts.

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The aim of the programmes is to enable students to bring the specialised skills of art into the everyday areas of society, into the context of museum education and art interpretation and into art lessons at baccalaureate schools. Dedicated and informed practice whilst working on images, in spaces and social situations, and in creating public spheres through use of photography, drawing and other media, including digital media is at the heart of the master’s degree in fine arts.
Over the course of the Master of Arts in Fine Arts, students are qualified to react and make interventions into the current conditions of society with their projects and activities. They learn to act with artistic and interpretive precision and with a high level of skill in their communications and actions.

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The programme allows freedom for experimental approaches, for work on artistic and aesthetic research and for acquiring well-grounded professional skills. It also offers a structured study framework with ongoing, extensive individual counselling provided by experienced and high-profile artists, art educators and cultural scholars, as well as a close relationship with the research activities of the Art, Design & Public Spheres Research Group of the Lucerne School of Art and Design, international partner institutions of the programme and the University of Teacher Education Lucerne. Colloquia, group discussions and symposiums support an environment of intensive knowledge sharing and discourse between lecturers, mentors and students as well as the master’s students of other universities and experts from national and international art debates.

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The integration of three majors into one group of students with a common focus on socially engaged artistic productions in art in public spheres and critical image practices is unique in Switzerland. Although the students of each major are preparing for different areas of practice, the intense and dynamic sharing of knowledge between art theory, artistic practice and interpretation skills for artistic, educational and curating contexts is a huge advantage.

The students with the Major Art Teaching benefit from a curriculum that allows the freedom for a challenging artistic practice and exploration of theoretical positions, and thus they acquire high-level skills for artistically informed and action-based art education in schools.

Students with the Major Art in Public Spheres or Image Practices on the other hand are constantly confronted with issues relating to collaboration, interpretation and addressing audiences, which all play a key role in artistic and art activism projects in specific public spheres and critical image practices in painting, drawing and photography.

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The student projects in the Master of Arts in Fine Arts may be created individually or in teams and are developed from the initial concept through a basis in theory into detailed plans for implementation. The intensive knowledge sharing with lecturers and among the students is highly valued. This knowledge sharing is encouraged by numerous colloquia and group discussions, the close proximity of the large student studios and the annually alternating specific locations in Central Switzerland, which serve as the common point of reference for all of the students’ master’s theses.

The involvement of numerous experts

All students are supported by a team of high-profile artists and art interpreters, who act as mentors for the students’ artistic work. They also supervise personally the MAT students’ teaching preparations. The intensive research activities of the lecturers in the research groups of the Lucerne School of Art and Design ensure a direct knowledge transfer between research, theory and practice. Various guest professors with specialised backgrounds from art theory and cultural studies help students to contextualise their project work. The Master Input events and the Master Dialogue programme bring international experts from art, art interpretation and art theory to Lucerne.

The students also benefit from partnerships with institutions such as the Museum of Art Lucerne and La Kunsthalle Mulhouse in artistic mediation projecta, the Lucerne School of Music, ECAV Sierre in the context of the ACT Performance Festival, the Institute for Education in the Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD). The Cooperation with the researchdepartment HSLU D&K enables graduates to take a pre-doctoral programme, currently in a pilot phase, as well as other courses since the 2016/2017 autumn semester.

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The programme is completed with the master’s theses in the form of the final exhibition: This is always linked to a specific context and a location or a region. The students are free to choose the form of the master’s thesis within the context of the site-specific exhibition. It is possible to choose to realise both artistic works and teaching or interpretation projects. The focus on alternating locations and regions in Central Switzerland enables the prospective artists and art interpreters to interact with the different rural, suburban and urban everyday realities and social contexts that can be found close at hand. In 2016, the final exhibition will be held in Emmen (LU), 2015 it took place in Pfäffikon (Municipality of Freienbach) and Lachen (Schywz), in 2014 it was in Lucerne as “Zwischenhalt Luzern” (Intermediate stop Lucerne), in 2013 it was the “Manöver Sarnen” [Manoeuvre Sarnen] (OW), in 2012 it was “Fokus Zug” [Focus Zug] (ZG) and in 2011 the “Master Kunst Tour” [Master Art Tour] in Littau-Reussbühl (LU).

To the archive of all final projects

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The Lucerne Master of Arts in Fine Arts, in Art Teaching, Image Practices and in Art in Public Spheres, puts high priority on artistic project work and in students developing their own artistic profile, whether as an individual or in a collective. The focus is on the independent artistic project, which is developed from the first semester into the thesis with the collective advice and supervision of mentors and classmates.

With the principle of learning through projects, the programme enables students to participate in contests such as “Kunsthoch Luzern”, “Sihlcity”, “Interventionen im öffentlichen Raum in Muri”; the students organise their own exhibitions; site-specific such as “Beyond the timberline” (2012), artistic mediations at La Kunsthalle Mulhouse (2015), interdisciplinary such as “Und weg mit den Minuten” [Kunsthaus Zug] (2014) and interactive, including performance events in public spheres such as “ACT”. In addition, there are career-specific modules and internships to prepare students for a career in the arts. This programme, with its basis in practice, is supplemented with reflection on current discourse in the form of lectures, seminars and master dialogues with international experts in the respective fields of art and public spheres, and art education.

The programme qualifies graduates of the Master of Arts in Fine Arts with the Majors Art in Public Spheres (MAPS) and Image Practices (MIP) to realise artistic projects in painting, drawing and photography as well as site-specific interventions in public spheres or within institutional frameworks, such as artist-run spaces and artists’ projects, in cooperation with public and private institutions, with urban development, district work and/or architecture firms both independently and commissioned by institutions. One primary objective is to empower the students to engage in artistic practice in long-term partnerships with various professions and to acquire skills in curation and interpretation.

Graduates of the Master of Arts in Fine Arts with the Major Art Teaching (MAT) are qualified to teach art in higher secondary education and work in art education or cultural education. This is due to the combination of artistic project work with modules for specialised teaching and learning methods and art education as well as professional and teaching internships. Their teaching is considered a participatory form of artistic intervention, which is well informed by art education in a public institution and that expresses a commitment to artistic education.

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