Participatory Arts MA

There is a growing interest in the role artists and other creative practitioners can play outside of traditional cultural spaces such as galleries, theatres and museums. Creative individuals can indeed apply their skills within community contexts, as well as specific domains of health, education, social welfare or other sectors. This MA in Participatory Arts will allow you to develop a better understanding of how you can apply your skills in social contexts.

On this course, alongside the traditional classroom setting, you can take up industry-based learning opportunities where you can put theory into practice, and will be supported as part of a growing community of practitioners working in this way. The knowledge and skills that you will gain will prepare you to work with organisations with community-based outreach departments, but will also enable you to develop an exciting freelance career.

The course will appeal to a range of people including: those who already, or want to, work within participatory arts settings (ie community arts, or socially engaged practice) and want to broaden your understanding of your professional practice; those with significant workplace experience who want to gain a formal qualification in a flexible manner; and recent graduates of fine, contemporary or performing arts courses, especially those who have developed a set of artistic skills and want to learn how to apply them to community projects.

“Participatory Arts” is an umbrella term that encompasses the practices of community arts, activist arts, and arts-in-healthcare, as well as a wide range of other practices in which artists work creatively within a social domain. As such, we don’t aim to define a single approach, but instead seek to support creative processes/skills operating within particular social contexts. This could include any creative practice (such as theatre, art, music, dance or puppetry, to name a few) that does not exist in traditional spaces (such as museums, theatres or galleries) but rather is based alongside and with individuals and communities in the public domain.

Over the past three decades in the UK, there has been significant and sustained growth in the arts within a social context. Indeed, the current national cultural strategy in Scotland aims to embed artistic and creative practices across numerous sectors, inviting artists, theatre makers, musicians, and all creative practitioners to be productive in industry, business, education, and social settings.

Concurrently, the arts are becoming more important within health and wellbeing contexts, and the national report ‘Creative Health: Arts for Health and Wellbeing’ calls for artists to play a vital role in the social health and with “social prescribing” becoming a key tool to address such social issues such as obesity, loneliness and depression. This MA will provide you with a strong base to build and develop your career as a creative practitioner working alongside communities.

The course focuses on creative activities with communities. It examines the history of socially engaged art and the significant, sustained growth of the arts in a social context over the past three decades in the UK. It provides you with the necessary knowledge, skills and experience to best prepare you for applying the arts and creativity to areas such as third-sector organisations, public health, social welfare, education or criminal justice.

You will spend time exploring your own ethical frameworks of why and how such creative projects can operate in the social domain.

The course also aims to provide you with the financial and enterprise skills to establish and market yourself as a creative practitioner working in social contexts in a sustainable professional manner, including fundraising and finance skills as well as planning and marketing.