Advert
Advert

MSc Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media

  • DeadlineStudy Details:

    MSc 2 year full-time, 4 years part-time

Course Description

This exciting two-year MSc offers a unique opportunity to undertake vocational training in the conservation of contemporary sculpture, installation, time-based media works of art and design including conceptual, digital, socially engaged, performance-based and mixed media works. Whilst ensuring that students are engaged with the key debates around the conservation and stewardship of contemporary art and design, the programme is fundamentally grounded in hands-on training for real-world situations.

About this degree

  • Are you an advocate for the art and culture of our time, able to engage with the major challenges of the day?
  • Do you want to work closely with art and artists, responding to the changing nature of emerging artistic practice?
  • Can you bring an interdisciplinary focus that combines both scientific and humanities-based thinking through working with contemporary art and heritage?
  • Would you like to develop your skills to handle, treat and manage artworks?
  • Are you able to work collaboratively to understand and address complex real-world problems?

The programme will produce contemporary art conservators who will be ready to address the challenges of caring for the art of our time within a rapidly changing world. The degree focuses on the conservation of contemporary sculpture, installation, time-based media works of art and design including conceptual, performance, digital and mixed media works.

The content of the programme will reflect current debates that are impacting the way in which we conserve, steward and care for contemporary art, design and media, thinking about the values and histories that underpin conservation practice, and urgent challenges facing the sector more broadly. This thinking underpins a programme that is fundamentally grounded in hands-on training for real-world situations.

Entry Requirements

A minimum of an upper secord-class degree BA, BASc or BSc from a UK university or an overseas equivalent. UCL will consider an equivalent level of work experience in lieu of an honours degree.

The programme is open to a broad range of backgrounds including (but are not limited to): arts, humanities, and social sciences e.g., arts, area studies, archaeology, anthropology, conservation, critical studies (including gender, queer, and race studies), geography, heritage and museum studies, history, history of art; and physical sciences and engineering, e.g., biochemistry, biology, chemistry, computer and data science, physics, any area of engineering.

The programme encourages those who have been out of formal education for a while but have a wealth of relevant experience to apply. For example, you may currently be working in a related field and wish to develop your career by gaining a qualification in conservation. The programme is offered both full time and part time.

Find out more

Fees

For fees and funding options, please visit website to find out more

Student Destinations

The MSc will prepare students for careers in the conservation of contemporary art, design and media. This includes museums, cultural heritage institutions, arts non-profit organisations, artist’s studios and private conservation practices, collection or gallery management, digital preservation and heritage management. Some students may also continue to doctoral research.

Module Details

Compulsory modules

  •  Examining and Analysing Artworks
  •  Communicating Conservation
  •  Science of Contemporary Materials
  •  Advanced Seminar in Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media
  •  Dissertation or Project Paper
  •  Work Placement
  •  Conserving Complexity: Conversation of Contemporary Artworks

Optional modules

  •  The History of the Category “Art”
  •  Methodologies of Art History
  •  Methodologies of Making
  •  Critical Methods and Debates in History of Art
  •  Race/Place, Exotic/Erotic: Difference and Desire in Modernist and Contemporary Art Practice
  •  Art as Theory: the Re-making of Criticism
  •  On Sex and Violence
  •  American Documentary: Invention, Reinvention and Afterlives
  •  Histories of Ecological Form
  •  Studio Practice: Conservation of Time-based Media
  •  Studio Practice: Conservation of Contemporary Materials
  •  Conservation of Performance
  •  Conservation of Code and Web-based Artworks
  •  East London Lab
  •  Sustainability and Decision-Making
  •  Inclusive Design and Environments
  •  Innovation for a Fairer World
  •  Find your Future
  •  Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice
  •  Exploring Power, Inclusion and Exclusion with Local Communities

Please note that the list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment and module content and availability is subject to change.

Find out more and apply

Add to comparison

Learn more about UCL

Where is UCL?