ma contemporary art practice

Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) at the RCA is a cutting-edge MA programme in the School of Arts & Humanities that is driven by a post-medium, critical approach to the making and reception of art, where theory and practice come together to form new ways of responding to the contemporary world. The programme supports the development of your art practice within a responsive, dialogical and critical environment with an emphasis on wider political issues – critically interrogating art production in relation to urgent socio-political contexts as well as questioning and redefining practice.

CAP supports ambitious, exploratory and research-driven artists, with programme specialisms in: critical, speculative and social art practices; moving image; performance; writing and techno-aesthetics. Our approach to Contemporary Art Practice is not determined by either technology or material, and CAP students create work using any media possible: from images, installations and moving image works, to publications and sonic art, participatory events, 3D modelling and VR, writing and performance.

The Contemporary Art Practice programme is profoundly attentive to the critical condition of our environment, humanity and the world around us and our students and graduates both contribute to and also expand the traditional roles assigned to artists to include modes of practice such as artist as activist, artist as publisher, artist as educator, artist as urban geographer and artist as community organiser. Students are encouraged to situate their practice within the social, political and economic conditions of the contemporary world; identifying what art can contribute to ongoing material, critical, technological and philosophical debates.