Brayford Pool
September 2025
1 year
This dynamic and flexible MA course is designed for students who are interested in a wide range of creative subjects, and offers opportunities to specialise while also exploring and integrating multiple creative disciplines. Whether you're passionate about one particular art form or eager to push boundaries by combining and crossing different practices, this course allows you to develop your unique creative voice. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, innovative practice, and critical reflection, you can enhance your skills, experiment across artistic forms, and build a diverse and adaptable creative portfolio. With a focus on both practical and theoretical learning, this MA provides an ideal environment to cultivate artistic expression, engage in multi-disciplinary approaches, and prepare for a range of professional opportunities in the creative sector.
The course aims to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue, creative exchange, and collaborative practice. You can transcend disciplinary boundaries, providing you with broad, culture- and creativity-driven experiences that nurture curiosity, critical thinking, and exploration. Our commitment to collaboration extends to research initiatives, artistic endeavours, and community engagement, thereby enriching the educational experience and equipping you with the skills and dispositions to thrive as versatile, empathetic, and socially conscious creative practitioner in an ever-evolving global landscape.
Across one year, you can develop practical and conceptual skills relevant to your chosen field, in order to prepare for professional practice or further study. You'll be able to locate and analyse your creative identity and professional field, identify relevant opportunities for creative entrepreneurship, and critically evaluate your working methods to make them more effective, efficient, and sustainable. MA Creative Arts offers the opportunity both to refine and grow discipline-specific skills and experience, whilst also engaging with practitioners working in other areas.
Work in industry-standard facilities and learn through practical application
Take an active role in Lincoln's artistic community
Strong links with professional creatives and organisations
Join The Lincoln Company, the Lincoln Arts Centre's company-in-residence
Learn from experienced industry professionals and academics
Exhibit your work in our on-campus exhibition space, Project Space Plus
You can learn from industry-experienced academics and experts on our Brayford Pool Campus in the heart of Lincoln.
Among the excellent facilities where you can hone your craft, are recording studios, performance spaces, rehearsal rooms, and MAC workstations. You'll also have access to our on-campus Lincoln Arts Centre, a 450-seat professional theatre with industry-standard studio spaces and regular professional performances.
You may also be able to make use of Project Space Plus, our on-campus gallery where students regularly exhibit their work. You can utilise software that supports documentation and practice and access photography, video, and audio facilities; acrylic resist etching; digital imagery and screen-printing equipment; as well as facilities for working with wood, metal, plaster, plastics, and resin.
There is a busy artistic community both on campus and across the city, and, through the great industry links which we maintain, you can forge connections with professional artists and organisations including Lincoln Arts Centre, UK New Artists, Threshold Studios (Frequency Festival of Digital Culture), SO Festival, Zest Theatre, and Barbican Creative Hub. There may also be opportunities throughout the course to collaborate with other students across disciplines. This is intended to enable you to grow your knowledge beyond your own discipline, and replicates industry approaches to arts and cultural strategy.
In the constant noise and clamour to be heard, we'll consider how to make our work stand out. We'll explore a variety of different traditional and non-traditional platforms and approaches to getting the message across, which will build into your own marketing, communications, and audience development package to support your practice or promote the work of others.
We'll be hearing from the Lincoln Arts Centre team and engaging with other professional cultural organisations to analyse and understand the strategies and campaigns that they've put in place. What worked, what didn't, and why?
In this module, you will take an in-depth journey through your creative process, from initial ideation to final delivery. You will engage in small group mentoring with course tutors, and one-to-one specialist supervision. Working throughout the year, you will document, reflect, and critically evaluate your working methods, developing a comprehensive portfolio that showcases your artistic growth. You will be encouraged both to refine your existing creative skills and techniques, and to experiment with new approaches to enhance your practice. Reflecting the different background experiences and practice conventions that students bring to master's level study, you will be invited to work independently, with fellow students, or with external collaborators on your creative project. You will also create professionally relevant supporting materials, such as press packs, funding applications, or PhD proposals to support your future opportunities. On completion of this module, you will have created a polished artistic project, reflective practice diary, and professional documentation that highlights your artistic evolution and readiness for the next stage of your career.
In this module, you will explore and critically evaluate your creative vision and identity by producing original creative work alongside a contextual essay that connects your practice to similar fields and highlights how your approach is distinctive. You will engage in small-group mentoring with course tutors, participate in peer critique, and meet practitioners across a range of disciplines during "guest artist" seminars. You will be encouraged both to refine your existing creative skills and techniques, and to experiment with new approaches to enhance your practice. Reflecting the different background experiences and practice conventions that students bring to master's level study, you will be invited to work independently, with fellow students, or with external collaborators on your creative project. Additionally, you will develop essential research skills to support your contextual essay and prepare for further study or professional practice.
† Some courses may offer optional modules. The availability of optional modules may vary from year to year and will be subject to minimum student numbers being achieved. This means that the availability of specific optional modules cannot be guaranteed. Optional module selection may also be affected by staff availability.
We want you to have all the information you need to make an informed decision on where and what you want to study. In addition to the information provided on this course page, our What You Need to Know page offers explanations on key topics including programme validation/revalidation, additional costs, and contact hours.
You can benefit from the our association with the Lincoln Arts Centre. Lincoln Arts Centre is a public arts centre which attracts both professional companies and promotes the in-house work of the students and staff within the University's creative community.
Our fabric print specialist room features two large format printers with two sizes of accompanying heat press, for printing full colour digital images onto a range of natural and synthetic fabrics. As well as domestic sewing machines, there is also a semi-industrial embroidery machine which allows you to convert drawings and lettering into stitches.
The MakerLab is a specialist facility for working with ceramics, glass, and precious metals. With two small fusing kilns, a large flat-bed kiln, finishing machines, grinders, polishers, belt linishers, glass drilling equipment, and more there is no end to what you can create.
Get to grips with an array of machinery and hand tools for the cutting, shaping and general fabrication of woods and metals. Laser cutting machines enable you to work with materials from fine papers and card through to soft and hard woods, veneers, acrylic plastic, leather, fabrics, MDF, plywood, and stencil plastics. The rapid prototyping area is equipped with manufacturing 3D printers which are used to create 3D physical models.
The photography studios are fully fitted with electronic LED flash lighting, wet film processing, darkrooms, and a digital video edit suite. You'll also have access to a range of camera formats and computer suites.
The printmaking studios provide facilities for traditional and contemporary printmaking processes. The studios cater for a comprehensive range of techniques including screen printing, relief printing, and monotype and letterpress.
Our Sculpture and 3D workshop allows mold making and casting in a variety of materials from plaster and wax to specialist silicone rubbers and epoxy resins. Our experienced technicians can guide you through many processes such as how to carry out life casting, making work directly from the body, or woodwork and clay for making masters, prototypes, or even finished pieces.
Lincoln Arts Centre provides a hub of creative performance where you can learn and practise in the 450-seat professional working theatre, large industry-standard studio spaces, and a workshop for building sets and props.
Perfect your performance with soundproofed practice and rehearsal rooms for music and mirrored dance studios for professional practice.
Graduates of the interdisciplinary MA Creative Arts can progress into a variety of roles within the creative and education sectors. The course supports career development for writers, actors, dancers, musicians, artists, teaching professionals, FE lecturers, and art technicians, equipping you with the skills and experience needed to advance in these fields. MA Creative Arts also provides valuable interdisciplinary experience that can enhance employability and creative practice across multiple industries. Additionally, you may choose to further your research and creative practice through PhD study, developing new interdisciplinary approaches within your chosen field.
Lincoln alumnus, Royal Designer for Industry, and award-winning furniture designer, maker, and environmentalist.
The assessment process for the MA in Creative Arts is structured to provide opportunities to showcase both practical and theoretical development. They're also designed to reflect a variety of real-world industry activities, offering you the flexibility to choose components that align with your preferred learning style or support your chosen career path.
You will have the opportunity to develop your creative, critical, and professional skills in assessment that may include:
• A substantial creative project, such as a performance, exhibition, or a fixed media output (e.g., a film, image portfolio, or music EP). As the course progresses, this creative work becomes more ambitious, reflecting students' evolving skills and artistic vision.
• A 4,000-word essay (or equivalent) contextualising their creative work, articulating their personal creative vision, and critically analysing the work through comparative practice with relevant practitioners or art forms.
• A reflective practice diary documenting their creative process, which will be submitted via a microsite on the University of Lincoln's WordPress platform.
• A professional press pack, a funding bid application for an artistic project, or a PhD proposal.
• A 20-minute presentation to an assessor panel, in which students critically analyse their professional field and explore entrepreneurial opportunities to fund or monetise their creative practice.
• A 2:1 Honours degree in a relevant subject area
• Equivalent professional experience as determined through Accredited Prior Experiential Learning, in consultation with the Programme Lead.
If you apply for this course, you will be required to take part in an interview. There is no particular portfolio requirement for the interview, though you are welcome to provide documentation or links to your work/practice in advance.
If you have studied outside of the UK, and are unsure whether your qualification meets the above requirements, please visit our country pages https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/studywithus/internationalstudents/entryrequirementsandyourcountry/ for information on equivalent qualifications.
Overseas students will be required to demonstrate English language proficiency equivalent to IELTS 6.5 overall, with a minimum of 6.0 in each element. For information regarding other English language qualifications we accept, please visit the English Requirements page https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/studywithus/internationalstudents/englishlanguagerequirementsandsupport/englishlanguagerequirements/.
For further advice on IELTS and the support available, please contact the International College by email at internationalcollege@lincoln.ac.uk.
Entry Requirements and Your Country | International Students | University of Lincoln
Postgraduate Application Support
Applying for a postgraduate programme at Lincoln is easy. Find out more about the application process and what you'll need to complete on our How to Apply page. Here, you'll also be able to find out more about the entry requirements we accept and how to contact us for dedicated support during the process.
You will need to have funding in place for your studies before you arrive at the University. Our fees vary depending on the course, mode of study, and whether you are a UK or international student. You can view the breakdown of fees for this programme below.
The University offers a range of merit-based, subject-specific, and country-focused scholarships for UK and international students. To help support students from outside of the UK, we offer a number of international scholarships which range from £1,000 up to the value of 50 per cent of tuition fees. For full details and information about eligibility, visit our scholarships and bursaries pages.
Postgraduate Funding Options
Find out more about the optional available to support your postgraduate study, from Master's Loans to scholarship opportunities. You can also find out more about how to pay your fees and access support from our helpful advisors.
For more information about this course, please contact the Programme Leader.
Dr Jacob Thompson-Bell
To get a real feel for what it is like to study at the University of Lincoln, we hold a number of dedicated postgraduate events and activities throughout the year for you to take part in.
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