Study programme
The Master Photography & Society possesses three fundamental values to situate photography at the core of our understanding of ‘who we are’ in this challenging and mutable world: Collaboration, Research, and Impact.
While image-making is at the core of Photography & Society, we challenge you to foster encounters beyond photographic practice. Situated in The Hague, Photography & Society shares close proximity to major civic and corporate players of global, national and local organisations.
As a socially-engaged photographer of the 21st century, you must be master of the distribution chain, seamlessly moving from concept to making work to presentation to novel forms of distribution. By analysing deep shifts within contemporary society and the professional field, Photography & Society is designed to ignite within you the opportunities to redefine the meaning of 21st century image-making.
Programme structure
The two-year English-taught master's degree programme Photography & Society is structured to reflect our strength in collaboration, research, and impact. Studios, workshops, seminars and other peer learning structures enables you, regardless of seismic shifts in the social and photographic landscape, to seek and find your own answers.
Photography & Society links to practical assignments. Through unique positioning of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK) near various ministries and internationally oriented partners and organisations, you engage with the political, economic, cultural arena.
Your first year provides a detailed engagement with practice through experimentation, questioning, play and dialogue as an input to the process.
Four studios are structured over two semesters around annually changing, centrally-established research themes based upon the dynamics of the changing field of work, providing a clear focus. Theory seminars and workshops support major studio work.
The Master Project (a combination of practical work and a written thesis), is a yearlong endeavour over the course of two semesters where a significant body of work is created, combining your explorations into individual practice and theory with an ability to position yourself – and your work – in a societal context.
The produced and written work reflects a synthesis of reflexive, conceptual, practical and professional abilities. Your Master Project is a fusion of analytical study and practice, culminating in a graduation show and public presentation of the work. It has entered society.
