Transart Institute MFA/PhD Call for Applications

The MFA Creative Practice is a highly individualized postgraduate program for working artists, teachers and professionals in related fields who are seeking advancement in visual arts and new media. The innovative program consists of three intensive summer residencies with workshops, lectures, critiques, seminars, performances and exhibitions in Berlin and two winter residencies in New York City. In the four semesters between residencies, students create their own course of study realizing individual art and research projects with the support of faculty and self-chosen artist mentors wherever they work and live. The program is geared towards the development of a sustainable artistic praxis rather than training in certain media or genres, challenging students to think conceptually and work creatively in new ways. Current students work with animation, curating, digital media, film, gaming, graphic design, installation, painting, performance, photography, robotics, sculpture, sound, text, video, virtual reality. More information can be found online

A Summer Residency Certificate Program is offered for artists who are not seeking a degree but looking for a creative surge or to bring their practice to the next level. Participants join MFA students in workshops, lectures and critiques and leave the residency with input on project plans for the year ahead. Artists attend the certificate program to revitalize their practice, take their work in a new direction, get a fresh perspective on their work and to become part of an international community of artists, theorists and curators. Certificate students have the option to participate in a year-long crit group for long term support with their artistic projects.

Summer Residencies are both milestones and resources, taking place at the beginning middle and end of the two year program. Residencies open with a thesis exhibition, performances and a public vernissage. Weeks one and three consist of studio workshops, week two focuses on cultural studies seminars, Fridays center on student presentations. In addition, guest lectures, artist and curator talks and critiques as well as individual meetings with faculty take place each week in order for students to plan, inform and finalize the coming year’s project. Details online

The focus is on presentations, critiques, feedback and the sharing of resources mid-way through studio and research projects. Students have the opportunity to experiment with presentation forms order to explore exhibition, performance and documentation possibilities in anticipation of the summer thesis exhibition. Guest artist talks, screenings and practical topical workshops complete the residency. This winter's schedule can be found in the calendar

Transart faculty comes from a wide range of academic and artistic backgrounds as well as geographic locations. Current theoretical areas of expertise include software art, curatorial work, cyberfeminism, African diaspora, interface technologies, digital arts, continental philosophy, media, social studies in colonialism, capitalism and tourism, word and image relationships, and contemporary asian art history. Studio faculty include international artists working with sound, performance, dance and choreography, photography, drawing, sculpture, film and video, intervention and installation art. Details online

The majority of Transart students are emerging and mid-career artists and educators at tertiary institutions. Transart Institute's residencies are a meeting place for cultural exchange. Transart students and alumni will converge for the summer residency from areas as diverse as Italy, Egypt, Pakistan, Iceland, Croatia, Ethiopia, Canada, Costa Rica, the UK and the US.

For many students the time at Transart is a transformational experience. New York based artist Virgil Wong found “The community I’ve become a part of through Transart is already much more immersive than what I’ve developed in ten years of living and working as an artist in New York City”. Photographer and performer Angelika Rinnhofer found that “to work independently can pose a challenge but it also offers freedom and flexibility. Since a large number of students are accomplished artists and earn a living, Transart’s concept is ideal to work toward a degree and to expand one’s artistic career in addition to having a job.” For composer and artist David Dunn “perhaps the most important aspect of the program, to me personally, has been the realization of just how constrained my professional life can be. I have n o lack of colleagues or opportunities to present my work but my network of association tends to reinforce a particular set of intellectual and aesthetic assumptions that become ‘the’ set of assumptions. Transart succeeds at prying apart some of those entrenched viewpoints to provide space for new ideas and concerns. The truly international makeup of the students and faculty reinforces this.” More details online

Full tuition is USD 9760 per semester. Transart Developing Country Scholarships are available to citizens of the 151 countries listed by the Australian Government online and cover 50% of tuition. Transart Merit and Achievement Scholarships are based on artistic excellence and cover 10 to 25% of tuition.