Estonian Academy of Arts

Master of Craft Studies

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The Craft Studies MA curriculum expands on the discipline and understanding of contemporary crafts and advances professional development, critical expression, and artistic research into materials, processes, concepts and identities. Through studio work and craft theory, students take part in recrafting the cultural, social, economic and ecological narratives. This program is a hub for emerging craft makers and thinkers.

Main focus:

• material- and process-based autonomous practices
• artistic research and creative authorship
• integrated traditional know-how and innovation
• meaningful narratives in materials and process

The aim of the program is to investigate the shifting paradigm of the world around us while critically discussing, rethinking and reimagining the role of making practices. Craft Studies operates alongside the peripheries and advocates for non-hierarchical material engagements.

The MA in Craft Studies provides students with an educational framework for drafting individual material- and medium-based practices with a focus on studio and research. This interdisciplinary hands-on program fosters elemental curiosity, critical thinking, cultural phenomena and making. Rooted within craft research, students undertake material explorations, field trips and theoretical challenges, and advance their own specialization.

The curriculum collaborates with and leans on the competence and traditions of the Ceramics, Glass, Jewellery and Blacksmithing, Textile, Accessories, Fashion departments and specialised labs at EKA.

This craft-centred curriculum leads students to contextualization, reflecting on and through their own practice; and places value on knowledge sharing and experiences, merging traditional and contemporary high- and low-tech approaches, innovation and envisioning of future craft practices.