Overview

Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, offers a 2 Year Postgraduate Arts Program and a 1 Year Postgraduate Diploma - Finish may be awarded upon successful completion of the Year 1 of the MA program. These programs along with its specialised courses are aimed at creative practitioners, professionals, and researchers.

The MA programs at SMI engage simultaneously with the fields of arts, humanities, and design, comprising specializations and curricula where:
making is the lens for theoretical reflection.
where what is made is the subject of critical inquiry.

2 Year Postgraduate Arts Program and
1 Year Postgraduate Diploma-Finish Program offered for 2024-2025

Click to view MA courses offered for Academic Year 2024-25

The MA is for:

Individuals interested in the practices of critical scholarship, creative arts,
and media who would like to:

• Advance careers in the arts, technology, and cultural sector;
• Ground current skills in research and public practice; and/or
• Pursue further studies in a PhD program.

At the heart of it, the MA concentrations prepare students to:

• Develop theoretical, historical, philosophical, and material approaches to practice;
• Reflect on fields of practice and one’s relationship to practice (questions of personhood);
• Add criticality to practice, including academia;
• Collaborate with other professionals; and Engage distinct communities and publics.

The specificities of MA practice are:

Making use of different media, ways of knowing, and research methodologies that help to:

• Re-position skill as a keyword for empirical and theoretical inquiry.
• Make tangible the processes of learning and research by engaging directly with communities, technologies, primary material sources, and published scholarship.
• Define employability as future academics, public practitioners in arts and design organizations, cultural organizers, and researchers in academic and public projects.

The educational goals of an MA are:

MA students develop research, critical making, and public scholarship skills via textual, visual, and multi-media forms that:

• Bring out key questions, forms, and methods by scholars and practitioners in the field.
• Study past and contemporary understandings of material phenomena. Through such studies, the history and theory of these fields and practices and their philosophies and methods of knowing and making become significant.
• Build discourse around specific themes defined by time, geographical focus, social complexity, material medium, and one’s positionality as researcher, teacher, and/or maker.
• Examine ethics of research scholarship and practice.
• Commit to public good towards responsible citizen-scholarship.
• Anticipate possible futures by centering the materiality of complex human and non-human conditions.

Modes of learning:

• Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary studios
• Workshops
• Seminars
• Lines of Inquiries (Field work, Case Studies, Investigations, individual or Group Projects, Transdisciplinary Research)
• Theory and Understanding
• Independent Study
• Open Elective
• Practice
• Exhibitions
• Culminating Performances of Understanding (Portfolio, Transdisciplinary research, Projects, Colloquium, Capstone/Dissertation)
• Knowledge Enhancement (ability or skills)

Eligibility for Admission

Applicants should have successfully completed any ONE of the following:

• NSQF Certification Level 8 in relevent industry sector
• National and International Universities – 3 year Undergraduate Degree including 3 year Bachelor of Vocation (B.Voc.) degree
• National and International Universities – 3 years Undergraduate Degree + 1 year Postgraduate Diploma Program (PGDP) from a recognized University
• National and International Universities – 4 years Undergraduate Degree
• Professional Institute – 5 years Undergraduate Degree

Please note that all awarding bodies must be recognised by state and/or central government institutions. Attach two copies of relevant certificates.

Award

Master of Arts (MA) - Postgraduate Degree

Admission Process

An applicant must successfully complete the Postgraduate Program admissions process as outlined in the SMEAT protocol.

Fee Schedule for 2024-25

FAQs

What are the characteristics of a Postgraduate Program, which is practice -based? (Art Practices, Design Practices and Interdisciplinary Practices in New Humanities and Design)?

"Practice-based professional learning (pbpl) is understood in contrast to 'classroom-' or 'theory-based' learning. It is kindred to terms such as 'work-based learning', 'workplace' or 'work-centred' learning. Distinctive, though, are a concern for professional learning, and the preference for 'practice' rather than 'work'. While it does not disdain propositional knowledge and what is sometimes called 'theory', its prime interest is in the formation of self-renewing and effective professional practices—a distinct theoretical position in its own right."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice-based_professional_learning

This unique and extremely nuanced postgraduate program has the following characteristics

1. Duration of 2 years or 4 semesters leading to an university Master of Arts degree
2. Has points of exit and entry that allows for the extension of the 2 years or 4 semesters to a maximum of 4 years (with drop or repeat of semesters) as per the published norms
3. Focuses on developing and extending practice in an interdisciplinary manner, focusing on emerging fields of knowledge
4. Provides for learner autonomy through both independent study as well as the opportunity to develop self direct inquiry within frameworks or boundaries of the published curriculum.
5. Clear escalation to a doctoral programme of study
6. Opportunities to either practice as an independent artist, researcher, designer, curator or join research labs and studios who have  clear need of critical inquiry around practices and working culture of India or the Global South