“Dot Line Circle Spiral.” Thesis Project by Tanisha D’Souza displayed at the Srishti Collective Graduate Exhibition (July 2018). Image courtesy the artist.
2-YEAR PG Arts Program
Contemporary Art Practice
Course Overview
“When our lived experience of theorizing is fundamentally linked to processes of self-recovery, of collective liberation, no gap exists between theory and practice.”—bell hooks (Theory as Liberatory Practice, 1994)
The MA in Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) is the first program of its kind in India, which equips students with transdisciplinary skills and knowledge to engage in contemporary art, cultural production, and societal issues in the region and transnationally. The program fosters students’ artistic and humanistic sensibilities and builds practical expertise for careers in various arts and cultural organizations, including GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) institutions, as well as academia. The program promotes a global and historical context of art and encourages community engagement for social impact, emphasizing the relationship of the arts (including contemporary art) to technology and social justice.
Note: Applicants should apply to the MA courses if they intend to take up PGDP Finish. There is no separate application form for PGDP Finish; one can exit at the end of year 1 of MA with an award of a PG Diploma upon successfully completing the graduation requirements.
Course Leader: Kush Patel
Faculty Team: Aastha Chauhan, Anil Kumar HA, Kush Patel, Mamta Sagar, and Shai Heredia
Vision
The MA in Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) is rooted in making, theorizing, and researching art and cultural production in society. By working across a range of practices in the fields of fine arts including public art, performance, film, and digital humanities, students will be encouraged to explore transdisciplinary methodologies towards nurturing their own artistic and humanistic sensibilities and skills. These explorations will draw from art history, media and cultural studies, translation and literary studies, critical technology studies, and gender and sexuality studies.
The program will prepare students for careers in arts and cultural institutions, academia, publishing, galleries, archives, and cultural platforms. It offers an exceptional opportunity to further studies in the historical, cultural, and political contexts of South Asia and its connections with the rest of the world. Through creative inquiry-based learning and community engagements, this program embodies the interconnectedness of the arts, technology, and society.
LEVEL
Postgraduate Degree
AWARD
Masters of Arts (MA)
DURATION
2 Years / Full-time
Course Structure
MA CAP will cover studios and project-based seminars connected to creative domains such as Text and Performance; Public Art; Archives and Digital Storytelling; and Image and Form-Making (including Moving Image).
Broadly, the first year will focus on establishing connections between theory and practice, while the second year will structure these connections around students’ individual claims to practice. Within the program, students will experience learning through each of the following modes:
- Core Studios
- Core Seminars, Electives, and Allied Courses
- Research Studio and Project-based Mentorship
- Academic Writing
- Arts and Culture Collaborations
- Artist in Residence
- Knowledge Enhancement and Skill-based Workshops
- Culminating Performances of Understanding (Portfolio, Transdisciplinary Research, Projects, Colloquium, Capstone or Dissertation)
Learning Approach
Over two years, students will learn through studios, seminars, projects, and field-based pedagogies, involving leading artists, curators, scholars, and critics. Together, these pedagogies will expose them to transdisciplinary practices in making, theorizing, and researching the intersections of the arts, technology, and society. The first two semesters will be identical in teaching and learning formats, requiring students to pursue studios and seminars that are core to MA CAP; encouraging individuals to enroll into allied courses from across complementary fields of study at Srishti Manipal; and guiding the cohort to align transdisciplinary inquiries with a lab, center, or research platform on campus.
The third semester is unique in pedagogical form, involving semester-long work in a project of collaborative nature with cultural spaces in Bengaluru or beyond. Through deliberate mentorship integrated with academic writing, students will also build skills to outline independent project-based inquiries, which they will subsequently develop in the context of their culminating Capstone work in semester four.
Throughout the program, students will experience both global and historical contexts in art, learn through direct engagements with communities and networked publics, and structure their academic training around critical technology and social justice principles.
Disciplinary Intersections
The program is informed by the following practices and fields of scholarship:
- Fine Art
- Art History
- Social Art and Design
- Translation and Literary Studies
- Media and Cultural Studies
- Digital Humanities
- Public Humanities
- Gender and Sexuality Studies
- Writing and Publishing
- Printmaking
- Photography and Film
Capabilities
The MA CAP program will nurture students’ capabilities for:
- Public dialogue and scholarly dissemination of creative and research works.
- Analog and digital curation of cultural objects.
- Text- and performance-based engagements.
- Information access and data discernment across digital media.
- Historical inquiry through image- and form-making.
Research and Collaboration
The students under this course will have the opportunity to work with the following centers and labs at Srishti Manipal:
- The Just Futures Co-lab
- ArtScienceBLR
- Kabir Project
- Blank Noise
- Art in Transit
- The Writing Center
- Center for Translation Studies
Opportunities
There is a strong demand within the Indian and international arts communities for skilled expertise in contemporary art practices. This program responds to such a demand by nurturing professionals for careers in galleries, museums, publishing, academia, and cultural institutions. Further, by embracing transdisciplinary pedagogies, the program builds new discourse across the arts and humanities. Specific opportunities and career prospects for graduates include the following:
GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) Sector: Artists, curators, and researchers trained in history, art history, and cultural studies seeking to work in galleries, museums, archives, and libraries with digital humanities focus.
Not-for-Profit Organizations: Individuals interested in working with grant-making organizations, art foundations, and governmental and non-governmental sectors.
Academia: Public scholars keen on pursuing doctoral studies and publicly engaged academic careers, including art and design programs, teaching and learning centers, and centers for the humanities.
Publishing: Writers and artists interested in extending their practice into scholarship through publishing with diverse media and open-access platforms.
Independent Artistic Practice: Artists working in the visual arts, media and communications, community practices, and critical technology studies wishing to make contributions to art and design festivals and biennials.
FAQs
MA Contemporary Art Practice at Srishti Manipal Institute is the combination of practices in fine arts
(including public art); performance; moving image; and digital humanities. The underpinning of the arts and humanities offers the program an expansive vocabulary for theory-building, critical making, and artistic expression through visual, textual, and/or mixed media forms connected to film, archives, performance, communities, and our everyday use of digital tools and technologies.
MA Contemporary Art Practice is suitable for anyone interested in building careers in the contexts of galleries, museums, archives, publishing, academia, and cultural institutions. This course is also ideal for individuals keen on honing their theoretical and practical skills for independent transdisciplinary artistic and cultural practices. Students with backgrounds in art and architecture, design, creative writing, and the humanities among others are strongly encouraged to apply; you are, however, not required to have a BFA or BDes degree to pursue this course.
MA Contemporary Art Practice is oriented to the GLAM sector, which include institutions such as Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums committed to making arts and cultural knowledge accessible to wider populations. The program’s professional promise includes practices in publishing, academia, and cultural institutions. Students of MA CAP can also further their research practice by continuing to do a PhD.
Only some of the learning units are mandatory within a specialisation and these units are called core integrated studios and core seminar respectively. In addition to these core courses, students can sign up for units from other courses, which are termed as allied or elective units. The allied units are the learning units offered by specialisations within the course you have enrolled in, and, electives are learning units offered by courses and specialisations outside of the course you have enrolled in.
Srishti Manipal does not provide an official/formal placement event for its graduating batches. Instead the graduation seminar known popularly as “The Srishti Manipal Collective” becomes a platform where wide-ranging professionals and artists are invited to attend and view our graduating batch’s capstone seminar and conference. Historically this event has also become a placement event. Additionally we publish a catalogue of our graduates each year which is circulated amongst industry, academia, and allied professionals.
The MA degree program is of two-year duration of full-time study. Students can also exit at the end of Year 1 of MA with an award of a Postgraduate Diploma (PGDP) upon successfully completing the graduation requirements. Applicants intending to take up a PGDP Finish should also apply to the MA courses; there is no separate application form for PGDP Finish.
Currently, scholarships through Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) are available for PG Students for the second semester upon research publication manuscript acceptance during their first year of coursework. This opportunity will waive 25% of the course fee or up to a maximum of Rs 1,00,000, whichever is lower. As per MAHE policy, only acceptance of full-length articles in Q1, Q2, or Q3 journals and acceptance of review-articles in Q1 and Q2 journals will be considered for scholarship.