MA in Visual Culture 

Our MA in Visual Culture is a distinctive interdisciplinary programme that invites students to develop their knowledge of visual culture, situating that knowledge in relation to working practices in cultural institutions, including museums, galleries and other heritage organisations. It will be of interest to students from a wide range of humanities and social science disciplines, as well as to visual arts and visual culture professionals who wish to reflect upon their practice in historical or theoretical contexts. 

What is the study of visual culture? 

‘The illiterate of the future’, wrote the Bauhaus artist and theoretician László Moholy-Nagy in 1920, ‘will be the person ignorant of the camera as well as of the pen’. The importance of critical visual literacy in the contemporary world cannot be exaggerated. But what is visual culture? And how does it saturate societies, both past and present? The concept of ‘visual culture’ acknowledges the pervasive nature of visual phenomena. In part, to study visual arts and culture is a way of paying attention to phenomena that are literally everywhere. 

Our programme facilitates the development of critical visual literacy in three main ways. First, it attends to the specificity of visual objects, images and events, encouraging you to develop approaches that are sensitive to individual works. Second, it investigates the nature of perception, asking how we make meaning out of what we see. Finally, it investigates how our relationships with other people, and with things, are bound up in the act of looking. 

Why study visual culture in Durham? 

The MA in Visual Culture benefits from Durham University’s strengths in visual culture. These include the Centre for Visual Arts and Cultures, which hosts a wide range of events and brings together researchers across the University’s different departments and faculties. The University possesses considerable resources for the study of visual culture in the holdings and expertise of our Museums, such as the Oriental Museum, and of Palace Green Library. 

The MA in Visual Culture encourages interdisciplinary work and allows each student to pursue their own research interests in consultation with relevant subject specialists. In addition, students may have the opportunity to work with a range of partner institutions across the North East, including Auckland Castle and the Bowes Museum, and beyond. 

What can you do with a postgraduate degree in Visual Culture? 

This programme has been designed to provide preparation for students who intend to proceed to a PhD in Visual Culture with a view either to pursue a research career in academia or to seek a position in other cultural organizations. The MA in Visual Arts and Cultures, however, also offers a qualification in its own right, allowing students to embark upon a range of careers in the cultural sector.