Your Artistic Research Study Journey
Year One: Explore and Focus
In semester one, you explore new ideas, materials, people, and maybe also the city. You orientate yourself to this new study and life environment, find the resources you need and experiment freely in your creative choices.
In semester two, your creative and conceptual experiments become more focused. You will be asked to bring work to shareable conclusions, to exhibit, hand in final texts, and to create a publication with your peer group.
Year Two: Deepen and Position
Summer break is a time to reflect on progress, catch up on reading, and make extended site visits. When you come back for semester three, you are asked to dive deeply into your personal research. It is time to ask and answer difficult questions. As you dig towards the core of your ideas, you also push your creative research in another public exhibition. In semester four, your final few months of study, you pull these threads together.
You conclude your written submission and focus on the realisation of your artistic goals. Your final exam submission, where artistic work, writing and spoken argument come together, presents a publicly shareable expression of two years of artistic research enquiry.
Annual exhibition and excursion
In 2026/27, each year group will create an exhibition in a public space in the city, supported by their teachers and a guest curator. The dept excursion will be a multi-day visit to Manifesta 16, in the German Ruhr area, and with students from Non Linear Narrative.
Courses & ECTS credits 2026-2027
The Master Artistic Research programme amounts to 120 ECTS and lasts two academic years.
See below the curriculum overview for Years 1 and 2.
In the first year of the programme you orient yourself in the new environment and explore resources that you need. Emphasis is also on experimentation with new approaches to making and finding focus for your own artistic research trajectory.
| Semester 1 - Explore | ECTS |
|---|---|
| Studio Based Research | 14 |
| Theory and Writing 1 | 9 |
| Research Mondays 1 | 2 |
| We are a Research Community 1 | 1 |
| Excursion 1 | 1 |
| Professional Practice 1 | 2 |
MAFAD conference week | 1 |
| Total study points per semester | 30 |
| Semester 2 - Find Focus | ECTS |
|---|---|
| Studio Based Research | 11 |
| Theory and Writing 2 | 10 |
| Research Mondays 2 | 3 |
| Public Presentation of Work 1 | 3 |
| Publication Project 1 | 1 |
MAR-NLN collaboration 1 ETHICS MAR-NLN collaboration 2 ECO | 1
1 |
| Total study points per semester | 30 |
The second year of the programme provides a deep dive into your research questions. As you dig towards the core of your artistic interest, you will also realise and share your findings in a designed thesis and public presentation of artistic work.
| Semester 3 - Deepen | ECTS |
|---|---|
| Studio Based Research | 11 |
| Theory and Writing 3 | 11 |
| Research Mondays 3 | 2 |
| We Are a Research Community 2 | 1 |
| Public Presentation of Work 2 | 3 |
| Excursion 2 | 1 |
| Professional Practice 2 | 1 |
| Total study points per semester | 30 |
| Semester 4 - Position | ECTS |
|---|---|
| Studio Based Research | 17 |
| Theory and Writing 4 | 8 |
| Research Mondays 4 | 3 |
| Professional Practice 3 | 1 |
| Publication Project 2 | 2 |
| Total study points per semester | 30 |
Teaching and Learning in MAFAD
The different parts of your curriculum all loop through each other and being a fully present and active participant in each element is how you learn. Our skilled teaching teams support you in different ways, but core approaches include:
• Individual tutorial support — knowledge transfer and discussion
• Group critique — learning from your peers
• Classroom lessons — knowledge transfer and feedback within a group learning environment
• Academic and theoretical training in group classes
• Exposure to guests with relevant advanced professional practices — these classes might
focus on skills training, cultural exposure and/or theoretical development
• Sharing your work in public realms as a guided experience of professional practice
• Collaboration with external parties — working with professionals on real-world projects and developing an embedded research practice by connecting academic inquiry to these professional contexts
• Cultural exposure in relevant group excursions
• Assessment — an ongoing cycle of feedback and feed forward tied to our core competences.
OER 2026-2027
Education and Examination Regulations
You can find information about the regulations and provisions dealing with the organisation of the programme and the assessments and examinations related to it in the Education and Examination Regulations (in Dutch: Onderwijs- en examenregeling; OER)
