Glass (Taught)

Arts University Plymouth is an arts university for the 21st century, preparing students who are uniquely placed to provide creative solutions to the complex global challenges of a changing world. Formerly known as Plymouth College of Art, we were granted full university title in Spring 2022. We are now the city of Plymouth’s first and only specialist arts university, allowing us to offer our students a dynamic and unique learning experience.

In May 2022 we were awarded the Best Small or Specialist University at the 2022 WhatUni Student Choice Awards coming top in a list of well-respected specialist UK universities, and in 2023 were awarded Silver in the same category, based on unbiased and honest reviews from students across the UK, in a category that highlights the quality of our provision as a specialist creative university.

The MA Glass programme encourages the development of individual and distinctive glass practice through engagement with contemporary approaches to the material, critical and cultural context and debate.

You will explore a full range of material expressions that will encourage you and challenge preconceptions about glass and its status within the world of craft, art and design.

The range of materials and processes covered includes hot glass, kiln-formed glass, coldworking, and architectural glass – resulting in a wide range of potential outcomes, from product design and sculpture to architectural installations. The programme is uniquely placed to offer a rich cross-disciplinary practice; you will also have access to our spacious and well-equipped metal and jewellery studios, as well as ceramics and resistant materials workshops, and our superbly equipped Fab Lab.

The programme addresses histories, technologies, contexts, material qualities and conceptual and narrative developments. Current issues around the discipline are explored, such as the rise of digital tools and technologies, hybrid practices, sustainability and globalisation. You are encouraged to consider these issues through testing, making, re-making, evaluating and positioning your critically engaged practice.

This programme encourages entrepreneurial creativity through self-initiated and independent approaches to making, whilst considering the subject at its extreme edges in relation to process, technique, application, potential customer use and audience.

Through three sequential phases or modules, we support our students in investigating, testing and developing their ideas in depth.
The core tuition includes advanced training in specialist disciplines, research methods, critical thinking, research ethics, project design, professional codes and conceptual frameworks, and an opportunity for negotiated study under specialist supervision. All of our programmes have access to our outstanding workshop facilities.
By combining our generic modules with specialist assignments and personal project proposals, we provide depth and specialisation within each subject area, while also equipping you with robust approaches, methodologies and techniques that can be applied across the commercial, social and public sectors.
All students are asked to submit an initial research proposal on application to the course. This proposal should explain the kind of work that you want to create in the course of the MA or MFA programme, and identify your key professional aims. Of course, we understand the creative practice is all about change and development, so you won’t be stuck with these initial ideas. Instead, they will form the starting point for a dialogue with your tutors about your work.
The first module on the MA examines the role of research methods in creative disciplines. The focus will be upon refining your research proposal through a process of making to ensure that it can act as a robust framework for your study. The second module supports you to identify the kinds of collaborations and public-facing opportunities that will strengthen your identity as a creative practitioner. The final module of each programme may be submitted as a dissertation or as practice, depending on which pathway best suits your concerns as a creative practitioner.

The final module of each programme may be submitted as a dissertation or as practice, depending on which pathway best suits your concerns as a creative practitioner.