Postgraduate study

MA fine art- Liverpool John Moores

About this course

Develop your artistic practice and understanding of contemporary art, relating to wider social and cultural contexts, with leading artists on LJMU's Fine Art MA.

• Benefit from state-of-the-art workspaces and facilities within the modern, purpose-built and RIBA award-winning John Lennon Art and Design Building
• Enjoy direct links with Liverpool’s most significant arts organisations, such as TATE Liverpool, Biennial, Bluecoat and FACT
• Work in allocated studio space (for full-time students)
• Network and collaborate in professional fields to boost your career prospects

Join a small group of students from a diverse range of backgrounds to develop your practice within a global context. You will benefit from a high level of discussion and reflection, test your artistic thinking, create exhibitions, events and collaborations.

We bring to the discussion of your work our expertise as artists with an established international exhibition practice. From our base in the shared cross-MA studio, we work in a number of architecturally diverse sites across the city for short projects and public-facing exhibitions. We see exhibition making as a medium to push your practice; to take risks, experiment and hone your professional skills. We invite curators and leading artists from the UK and internationally, to join us in crits and assessments. In many of these projects you take the lead, with our support – from scouting and negotiating sites to marketing and promotion. In doing so you are also building a professional network which will be invaluable to you after you graduate.

Our institutional partners Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Biennial and FACT support our Masters programme, through participating in crits and collaborating on 

The MA offers opportunities for interdisciplinary dialogues with students on our other Masters courses through the cross-school modules: Research and Practice 1 and 2 and Collaborative Practice. And we encourage exchange of perspectives, expertise or equipment with all faculties from Astrophysics to Zoology. You will also have access to the Exhibition Research Lab, a creative partnership led by the Liverpool School of Art and Design and, as previously mentioned, Liverpool Biennial, which acts as an interface for collaboration with national and international artists, designers and public audiences.

Fees and funding

There are many ways to fund postgraduate study for home and international students

Fees

The fees quoted at the top of this page cover registration, tuition, supervision, assessment and examinations as well as:

• Library membership with access to printed, multimedia and digital resources
• Access to programme-appropriate software
• Library and student IT support
• Free on-campus wifi via eduroam

Additional costs

Although not all of the following are compulsory/relevant, you should keep in mind the costs of:

• accommodation and living expenditure
• books (should you wish to have your own copies)
• printing, photocopying and stationery
• PC/laptop (should you prefer to use your own)
• mobile phone/tablet (to access online services)
• field trips (travel and activity costs)

• placements (travel expenses and living costs)
• student visas (international students only)
• study abroad opportunities (travel costs, accommodation, visas and immunisations)
• academic conferences (travel costs)
• professional-body membership
• graduation (gown hire etc)

Funding

There are many ways to fund postgraduate study for home and international students. From loans to International Scholarships and subject-specific funding, you’ll find all of the information you need on our specialist postgraduate funding pages.

Bursaries and study awards

The Liverpool School of Art and Design offers students across all taught postgraduate programmes opportunities to apply for scholarships aimed at broadening student knowledge and experience.

The Michael Pugh Thomas and Julia Carter Preston Legacy scholarships consist of a number of £1,000 awards and are open to full-time and part-time home and international students who wish to study for a postgraduate qualification in art and design with LJMU. Part-time applicants can only apply once over the two years of their course.

To be considered for the scholarship, you must submit a 500 word letter to apsadmissions@ljmu.ac.uk after being formally offered a place on a Masters programme in the School of Art and Design. The deadline for application for 2019 entry is Friday 14 June 2019.

Please ensure you include your name, contact details, the full title of the course you have applied to study on and 500 words stating why you should be awarded the scholarship, the benefits it will bring to your studies and any exceptional circumstances you face in studying for a postgraduate qualification. Further information for international students about finance, fees and scholarships can be found here.

The School's main travel bursary for existing students, The Susan Cotton Travel Awards, consists of three European Awards of £1,600 and two International Awards of £2,300. The awards are intended to help you undertake significant domestic or international travel in support of your work and personal development. The awards aren't necessarily about academic study, instead they focus on the spirit of travel and adventure. Previous winners of the bursary have travelled to a tropical island to experience life at its most basic, cycled the length of the Danube, spent a month in Morocco and inter-railed through Europe. Deadline for entry to the travel awards are Monday 14 January 2019.

Employability

Further your career prospects

LJMU has an excellent employability record with 96% (HESA 2017) of our postgraduates in work or further study six months after graduation. Our applied learning techniques and strong industry connections ensure our students are fully prepared for the workplace on graduation and understand how to apply their knowledge in a real world context.

This Masters programme is entirely geared towards facilitating a practical understanding of how you might exploit your own practice in the professional sphere.

During your studies you will come across opportunities for networking, collaboration and work-related experiences, preparing you for roles in the cultural sector as well as for further research.

The John Lennon Art and Design Building is a knowledge hub for the region’s creative industries and studying here will enable you to establish significant links with the professional fields in which your future career will develop.