20 Mar 2012

The Unschool Art School MFA/PhD

THE UNSCHOOL PROGRAMS IN A NUTSHELL
- A contemporary learning experience without grades or pre-formatted curriculum
- Summer intensives in Berlin, the art capital of Europe
- Fall and spring residencies in New York City
- Workshops, seminars, professional development, studio and performance tours
- Develop a sustainable artistic praxis rather than being trained in certain media or genre
- Design your own course of studies
- Realize your creative projects with the support of curators, faculty and self-chosen advisors
- Low-residency format allows you to keep professional and family obligations while advancing your career
- International make up of students and faculty fosters exchange across cultural boundaries
- Alumni and faculty form an international collective with exhibition and performance opportunities
- Offsite study, critiques and advisement wherever you live and work
- Regular one on one reviews and interactions with a variety of curators
- Thesis exhibition, performances reviewed, critiqued and curated by established international curators

STUDENT LOANS
We are pleased to announce that Sallie Mae has approved eligibility for the University of Plymouth to use Sallie Mae's Smart Option Student Loan as a funding option for U.S. students and students with a U.S. co-signer.

SIX SCHOLARSHIPS FOR THE MFA CREATIVE PRACTICE have become available. The scholarships range from USD 6,000 to 18,000. More information on scholarships can be found on Transart's website.

MFA APPLICATION DEADLINE is April 1, 2012.


PHD STUDIES START THIS SUMMER. Transart is offering the first international low-residency PhD course of studies: A three to four year full time degree program with an average work commitment of 30 hours per week. Registration is initially for the MPhil stage, with students transferring to PhD registration at the end of the first year. The Degree is only offered for practice-based research (creative work) accompanied by a written thesis with a word count to be agreed upon with advisors, generally 40,000-80,000 words. Advisors will come from Transart and from Plymouth University. The Institute is particularly keen on encouraging proposals that in the widest sense explore space and inhabitation of space, the archive, documentary art making, language/image, software studies, network culture, performance and the role of art in peace, mediation and international relations. The proposal should demonstrate systematic study, independence, critical competence and originality. Sign up to the Transart PhD newsletter.

PHD APPLICATION DEADLINE is May 1, 2012


THE UNSCHOOL CERTIFICATE. Transart offers a summer residency certificate program for artists who are not seeking a degree. Participants join MFA/PhD students in workshops, lectures, critiques and leave the residency with input on project plans for the year ahead. Artists attend the certificate program to get a creative surge, get a fresh perspective on their work, revitalize their practice, take their work in a new direction, make plans for a focussed praxis in the year ahead and to become part of an international community of artists, theorists and curators. Artists who successfully complete the residency will receive a non-credit certificate of attendance.

CERTIFICATE APPLICATION DEADLINE is May 1, 2012


SUMMER PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS:

Urban Poetics, a seminar with curator Radhika Subramaniam is concerned with that ephemeral notion 'the urban experience' and how it is brought into being, a historic process and a deeply sensual one. The elements of space, time, memory, subjectivity, and perception that have created it and continue to do so have also constructed an urban way of knowing. Exploring the questions, What are the urban knowledges produced by these ways of knowing? How do urban practices frame our ways of seeing and being? How do these habituate us and influence the ways in which we inhabit cities? close reading, experiments, performance, listening, walking, and a deep exchange and intersection with one's artistic practice will occur.

Monopolydialogiphonia, workshop with Michael Bowdidge asks: What does it mean to find one's own voice? What does it mean to work with other voices? To lose oneself amongst other voices? Is it still possible to consider oneself to have an authentic voice as a practitioner if, as Barthes suggests, the author is dead? If we can no longer be certain who is speaking, then perhaps we are at liberty to explore other voices and ways of speaking through our practice. This workshop uses the work of Mikhail Bakhtin to explore these issues and open us up to the possibilities of internal and external dialogues, embracing polyphony and heteroglossia individually and through collaboration will allow us to explore spaces of shared authenticity.

Reality, Fiction and the Space of Both and Neither led by Stanya Kahn will offer an intensive studio video course in which students will construct narratives out of lived experience and find performances in the mundane, strategizing alternate methods for making stories and for undoing them, creating hybrid stories while exploring the porous boundaries between fiction and document.


For questions or to make an appointment to speak with faculty please contact Drew Henmi: henmi@transart.org

Please distribute this info as appropriate.