Jewellery & Metal MA
London, United Kingdom
MA
DURATION
1 year
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2027
TUITION FEES
GBP 41,350 **
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* as the RCA received a high number of applications we encourage you to apply as early as possible to secure your place on your programme.
** overseas and EU | visit the RCA website to find out about fees for this programme as well as scholarship and funding opportunities
Key Summary
About: The Jewellery & Metal MA at The Royal College of Art examines materiality, object–human relations and contemporary jewellery and metalwork. Through studio practice, tutorials, critiques, seminars, workshops and lectures you'll blend analogue and digital making, historical research and theory to develop experimental objects, jewellery and metal artefacts. The programme stresses interdisciplinary practice, peer feedback, staff mentoring and public presentation while advancing craft skills, fabrication, casting, surface treatment and digital fabrication.
Career Outcomes: Graduates work as jewellers, metalsmiths, product designers, makers, curators or creative entrepreneurs; many launch studios or brands. InnovationRCA supports incubation, intellectual property and commercialisation in international markets.
The Jewellery & Metal program seeks to unpick the relationship between people and things, pushing beyond the subject-object binary JaM students explore the multiple ways we are entrapped and enthralled by the complex entanglement of the material and immaterial worlds. Through emergent acts of making, JaM believes we can shed new light on these complex and essential relationships, revealing great depths in our understanding of, and being in the world.
As artists and designers, we engage with the making process as an essential way of materialising ideas, thoughts, and feelings, offering a space for innovative and radical new ways of approaching jewellery, objects, and metal. We are responsive to the rapidly changing social and cultural landscape, drawing on history and technology in nurturing intellectual and creative skills directed at understanding and pushing forward jewellery and objects of human making. The rich and extensive bodies of knowledge associated with jewellery and metal object-making underpin an approach that is outward-looking and open to the wider discourse of “things” connected to contemporary life. Students can expect to work with, and through, a vast array of material possibilities, exploring a multiplicity of possible narratives.
How will I learn?
Through tutorials, critiques, workshops, and lectures students are encouraged to challenge traditional perceptions and perceived hierarchies, as well as to question and exploit both digital and analogue realities. Seminars and group discussions form an essential part of the programme as we believe that the cross-fertilisation of ideas alongside staff and peer feedback is essential to postgraduate learning and interdisciplinary thinking.
Meet the RCA
We host a range of online and on-campus open days as well as recruitment events in cities around the world. These events can include 1-to-1 meetings and portfolio advice, informal chats, presentations and sessions with staff, students and alumni.
Check the RCA event webpage for details of upcoming events including events in India and the USA.
Please refer to the programme webpage for the most accurate and up-to-date information about the programme, its structure, modules and any updates or changes.
The MA Jewellery & Metal at the RCA develops your creative jewellery and metal practice through a material and research-led process. You explore the intersections of social, technological, art and science, nurturing your creative identity in a space that merges art and design, the material and immaterial, and the digital and analogue. This programme challenges you to question conventions, interrogate the role of objects and adornment, and develop a personal, self-directed practice rooted in critical reflection. You will gain access to both traditional and digital making techniques and cultivate new methodologies that combine technical rigour with conceptual inquiry.
Programme structure
Term1
In term1, you take Interrogating Your Practice and Deconstructing Assumptions, which focuses on developing analytical tools to critique and rethink your existing practice and methods. The unit encourages the development of personal, investigative research methods, contextualising your work within new critical and material conversations.
Term2
In term2, you take Developing Methodologies, where you explore and experiment with material-led techniques and processes to shape your research direction. You also define your professional context, understanding how your practice could operate within the fields of art and design.
Also in Term2, you take the Urgency of the Arts school-wide unit that explores how arts and humanities practice can respond to urgent socio‑political issues through workshops and specialist-led discussions.
Term3
In term3, you take an Independent Research Project, synthesising your research, making, and thinking into a coherent body of work for public presentation.
AcrossRCA
During the first two terms, you participate in the AcrossRCA college-wide unit, collaborating with students from other programmes on a self-initiated themed project that addresses cultural, social, environmental or economic issues.
Core Skills
The Core Skills unit supports the development of academic and professional skills for your personal projects and beyond in your professional practice and career. It focuses on key skills for your discipline through three themes: Making Meaning (focusing on critical thinking and research), Making Together (focusing on collaboration and inclusive practice), and Making Public (focusing on communication, engagement and leadership).
The Royal College of Art is the world’s leading postgraduate art and design university, providing students with unrivalled opportunities to develop their practice, build their networks, enhance their career and to deliver art and design projects that transform the world.
For 12 consecutive years, the RCA has been ranked as the world’s number 1 art & design university in the QS World University subject rankings (2015-2026) - attracting artists, designers and communicators from across the globe.
House of Fraser Bursary
Supporting students in any MA programme from the UK (Preferably Scottish nationals), experiencing financial hardship
Eligible Programmes: Architecture MA, Interior Design MA, City Design MA, Environmental Architecture MA, Ceramics & Glass MA, Contemporary Art Practice MA, Curating Contemporary Art MA, V&A/RCA History of Design MA, Jewellery & Metal MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA, Writing MA, Animation MA, Digital Direction MA, Information Experience Design MA, Visual Communication MA, Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA
Funding Categories: Financial hardship, Full time, Student preferably of Scottish origin
Eligible fee status: UK fee status
Value: £10,000
Sir Frank Bowling Scholarships
The Scholarship supports 21 UK MA, MRes and PhD students every year from across all RCA MA, MRes and PhD disciplines.
Eligible Programmes: Architecture MA, Interior Design MA, City Design MA, Environmental Architecture MA, Architecture Pathway MRes RCA, Architecture MPhil/PhD, Ceramics & Glass MA, Contemporary Art Practice MA, Curating Contemporary Art MA, V&A/RCA History of Design MA, Jewellery & Metal MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA, Writing MA, Fine Arts & Humanities Pathway MRes RCA, Arts & Humanities MPhil/PhD, Animation MA, Digital Direction MA, Information Experience Design MA, Visual Communication MA, Communication Design Pathway MRes RCA, Communication MPhil/PhD, Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA, Design Pathway MRes RCA, Design MPhil/PhD, Healthcare & Design MRes, Intelligent Mobility MPhil/PhD, Materials Science MPhil/PhD, Computer Science MPhil/PhD
Funding Categories: Financial hardship, Students with Black African and Caribbean diaspora heritage, or mixed Black African and Caribbean diaspora heritage
Eligible fee status: UK fee status
Value: £21,000
The Tony Snowdon Scholarship
Applicants must make an application via the application portal on the Snowdon Trust website from Jan 2023: https://www.snowdontrust.org/scholarships
Eligible Programmes: Architecture MA, Interior Design MA, City Design MA, Environmental Architecture MA, Architecture Pathway MRes RCA, Ceramics & Glass MA, Contemporary Art Practice MA, Curating Contemporary Art MA, V&A/RCA History of Design MA, Jewellery & Metal MA, Painting MA, Photography MA, Print MA, Sculpture MA, Writing MA, Fine Arts & Humanities Pathway MRes RCA, Animation MA, Digital Direction MA, Information Experience Design MA, Visual Communication MA, Communication Design Pathway MRes RCA, Design Products MA, Fashion MA, Global Innovation Design MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc, Intelligent Mobility MA, Service Design MA, Textiles MA, Design Pathway MRes RCA, Healthcare & Design MRes
Funding Categories: Financial hardship, Students with a diagnosed physical or sensory disability
Eligible fee status: Any
Value: Up to £15,000 in tuition fees + £15,000 maintenance support
What types of jobs to graduates go on to?
The RCA has consistently produced world leaders in the fields of creative endeavour – acting as a launchpad for the careers of major international figures.
Our alumni shape the world – whether founding their own studios and brands, pushing the boundaries of possibility through their start-ups or taking on impressive roles with global companies across a wide range of disciplines.
What if they want to start their own business?
Our creative students have ambitions of being their own boss and making their own decisions, so launch their own enterprises or studios either soon after graduating or any some time employed in industry. Many did not intend to start their studies considering themselves entrepreneurs but discovered an idea during their studies with their fellow students that they believe would make a successful business. InnovationRCA – the College’s centre for student and graduate enterprise and entrepreneurship – supports students and recent graduates to transform compelling ideas into successful businesses, providing incubation, intellectual property and commercialisation support.
Students from over 70 countries come to the RCA. We welcome applications from talented, creative individuals from all over the world. Many are from backgrounds you might expect such as art, design, architecture, communications, media and humanities. Others come from disciplines as broad as engineering, social sciences, technology, toolmaking, medicine, business, law, physics, life coaching, economics, teaching, music, etc. The list is endless. What RCA students share is the potential, commitment and ambition to make change in the world through art and design.