National College of Art and Design
MA/MFA Art and Social Action
Dublin, Ireland
MA
DURATION
1 year
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2027
TUITION FEES
EUR 8,100 *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* €14,500 non-EU/international fee | €4,500 part-time
Fast-track counseling
By contacting the school, you'll get access to free priority counselling for any study and application questions.
Key Summary
About: The MA/MFA Art and Social Action at The National College of Art and Design is a 1-year postgraduate programme in trans-disciplinary practice that privileges collaborative, community-based and participatory approaches to creative production and social transformation. Suited to graduates from varied backgrounds, it mixes theory and practice across urban, rural and online contexts and supports research-led public projects, place-based interventions and collective action.
Career Outcomes: Graduates gain professional skills for socially engaged art and related fields. They can work in education, public programming, museums and galleries, community arts, cultural organisations, arts development and project coordination or continue research and curation.
The MA/MFA Art and Social Action is 1-year a postgraduate programme focused on trans-disciplinary practice and thinking that privileges collaborative approaches to production and creative approaches to social transformation, emphasising the capacity of art practice to imagine our world differently.
What to Expect
This MA/MFA is suited to graduates from multiple backgrounds who are committed to developing their creative practices to address social issues, spatial injustices and civic life through community collaboration, public intervention or collective action.
Engaging with theory and practice, and delivered by a diverse team, this programme provides its student cohort with dynamic educational experiences in local and national contexts; across and beyond academic boundaries, to develop their practices in response to their research and engagements within diverse contexts, including urban and rural place-based sites, temporary and online communities, and public and cultural settings.
The Art and Social Action programme has been designed to support the professional practice needs of a range of learners. Although not a narrowly vocational programme, it recognises the value and importance of ‘real world’ learning, and so features modules which are offered in formal partnership with external organisations including Create – the National Development Agency for Collaborative Arts.
Although students may choose to develop projects which constitute a deep investigation of theories of social-engagement in art, it is expected that the large majority of students on the MA/ MFA programme will engage directly with different stakeholders to realise public projects. As such, the programme is committed to supporting the acquisition of skills required for successful professional practice in art as well as in related fields such as education, public programming in museums and galleries and community based arts.