Master of Fine Art

Purpose

1. The Masters of Fine Art qualification provides an advanced, postgraduate study path for visual artists and designers who hold four-year, fine art Degrees and who wish to upgrade their academic.
2. The qualification equips qualifiers with the knowledge and skills necessary for successful professional practice as visual artists, for employment in the field of visual arts, or for further independent research toward the Ph.D. Degree in visual art.
3. The qualification helps meet the cultural and intellectual needs of South Africa in the important areas of visual arts practice and interpretation, and helps provide society with a cadre of trained visual arts practitioners.

Recognition of Prior Learning

Non-Honours leaners who have shown by examination or publication or a record of appropriate training that they have reached a level in the subject or a cognate subject equivalent to an Honours bachelor's Degree may be permitted to register for the Degree.

Entry requirements

The minimum entry requirement for this qualification is

• Bachelor of Arts Honours in Fine Arts, NQF level 8.

(a) Critical cross-field outcomes (generic to all teaching and learning).

The Master of Fine Art learner is able to demonstrate mastery to depth of a theoretically sophisticated subject matter;

The Master of Fine Arts learner is equipped with proficiency in research methodology sufficient to proceed to a PhD. Leaners have mastered the skills of critical thinking, problem solving, collection and analysis of data, and effective professional written communication.

(b) General outcomes (contextually demonstrated general knowledge, skills and values of the qualification).

The Master of Fine Art learner is able to

(i) Conduct independent research in a discipline (or inter-disciplinary field);

(ii) Communicate verbally and orally with professional audiences;

(iii) Apply in-depth and specialised disciplinary knowledge and research skills to discipline based problems;

(iv) Analyse and critique communications of an academic and popular nature;

(v) Appreciate the ethical issues associated with research and knowledge production in the discipline;

(vi) Understand the processes whereby knowledge in the Humanities is constructed.

(c) Specific Outcomes, including professional outcomes, contextually demonstrated.

The Master of Fine Art learner will be

(i) competent to formulate personal approaches, at an advanced level, to complex aesthetic problems relating to, (a) basic design, pictorial and spatial elements; (b) the understanding and interpretation of past aesthetic practices, processes and technologies; (c) the ability to apply them to a contemporary setting; and, (d) to communicate these through expressive mediums;

(ii) familiar with contemporary philosophical and theoretical issues in Fine Art;

(iii) able to apply appropriate research methods to creative research problems;

(iv) able to conduct advanced literature searches to inform review of specialised literature;

(v) able to prepare papers for peer review;

(vi) able to evaluate examples of contemporary art.

(a) The achievement of these outcomes is assessed in the integrated assessment of the qualification.

(b) The achievement of these outcomes is assessed in the integrated assessment of the qualification.

(c) The qualification is by exhibition of practical work and dissertation. Both components are closely supervised and regular, informal, assessments are given throughout the study programme. Learners are required to attend weekly seminars in the Masters Seminar programme and to deliver on paper in each year of registration.

Formative assessment includes the preparation of seminar papers and regular studio critiques.

• Summative assessment takes the form of the capstone examination of the learner's primary creative research project.

Integrated Assessment

The integrated assessment of the Master of Fine Art degree includes the measurement of foundational, reflexive, and practical competencies.

Learners are required to work under the close supervision of a supervisor appointed by the School. Consequently, a week by week assessment of the following elements is available to learners; refinement of the research proposal; completion of an apposite bibliography; research and collation of appropriate visual referents. In addition, learners are required to attend weekly sessions of the Masters Seminar programme and to deliver one paper in each year of registration.

Learners are expected to conduct creative research at the School throughout the two years of registration. The integration of skills learnt in the MFA degree in is assessed by means of a normal Institution examination that is held at the end of the study period. This takes the form of an exhibition. The dissertation, which is normally 15,000 words is extent, is examined at the same time as the exhibition of creative work.

The dissertation must demonstrate competence in the following areas, all of which are assessed in the examination of the dissertation:

• Precise research proposal formulation;
• Familiarity with and integration of the specialised literature that informs the research proposal;
• Appropriate correlation with the body of creative work;
• Use of appropriate illustrations, figures and publication and style conventions of the discipline;

The exhibition and dissertation is subject to external examination.