The Master of Fine Arts (Research) is a two year research degree program administered by the University's Research Higher Degrees Unit and supervised by the School of Visual and Performing Arts. We offer supervision in the following areas: art theory, arts management, ceramics and glass, curatorship, digital art, drawing, painting, photography, sculpture and textiles.
Our special relationship with the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery also enables approved Masters research projects to be undertaken. These could include the theory of conservation management, public arts management and cultural collection practices.
Some Current MFA Projects are:
"I am as disconnected from objects and the built environment as the machines that make them; one step removed. With my hands I search for signs of life, a trace, an indication of where it came from, how it was made, its material lineage. A trace of the hand, in the making. What is fabricated, isn’t always familiar. Through my MFA research I am finding ways to re-connect the hand and mind with the making process, and to communicate this through the medium of ceramics. Perhaps a closer understanding of materials and the making process, particularly through physical contact or tacit knowledge, will foster a deeper appreciation for the products of our culture? Conversely, as proponents in a post-industrial society, perhaps it is time to consider the implications that a lack of appreciation may have, in view of the finite resources on this planet."
Sachiko Mardon
"As a product of a post-modern, post-industrial society I am familiar with the legacy of the modernist vision, even seduced by it. I am a part of the system it created, likewise, it permeates my thought processes and visual language, with economy and precision."
"This project will seek to investigate the ideals of the managed landscape and how this has influenced its artistic representation from the early colonial period to the present. Rural land, often populated by domesticated animals and varying degrees of technology, has been represented by successive generations of artists from John Glover to Tom Roberts and the Heidelberg school through to the contemporary work of Phillip Wolfhagen and Patrick Greave. This evolving representation of the rural landscape can be seen to reflect societies changing attitudes towards itself and in turn how in Australia there has been a growth of the romantic ideals of the farm, the outback and the bush."
Damien Quilliam
"By analysing a selected group of images of rural Australia as historical data, I intend to present an alternative reading of the mythology of rural Australian identity. This interpretation will demonstrate that what may have been considered idyllic often only partially masked the reality of rural life for much of the period of colonisation."
"Voicing the unvoiced through body and sound by developing a method of theatre training and performance by which the ‘grounded’ voice and body is the primary drive of action, movement and focus. This examines methods of grounding the voice and body by dissecting the relationship between voice, body and earth; examine and develop a conditioning method that lengthens and strengthens the body as well as strengthening the support mechanism; apply these methods in rehearsal and performance context with the focus being on the experimental, expressive release of sound with the impulse generating from below the surface. In essence, this research will look at the linking of three essential, unified elements of expression in performance: the psyche, the body and the voice. "
Robert Lewis
"The aim is to examine and combine the Eastern and Western philosophies and practices of performer – body relationships, in particular Butoh and Suzuki with voice and text work. The relationship to the ground/floor/earth/surface will be integral to the linkage between body, strength and voice. The notion of sound having more weight and power over the spoken word will be examined by applying the voice with these physical explorations.
In the cosmological work Timaeus, Plato discussed the ideas of Being and Becoming, two concepts which reappear in various guises in modern scientific theories. For Plato, the world of Being is the real world ‘apprehensible by intelligence with the aid of reasoning, being eternally the same’, while that of Becoming (the realm of time) ‘is the object of opinion and irrational sensation, coming to be and ceasing to be, but never fully real’.
These ideas will be explored in a visual and written investigation where ‘Being’ is of the ‘now’, this moment, describing itself through experience and things as they present at this time. However, the stage of Being is the space where, from a distance, one can attempt to understand the past. From the position of the moving ‘now’, one is able to speculate the future, to contemplate stages of change / alteration and a sense of Becoming. Nevertheless, none of this can be guaranteed.
Siew Har Teo
"Through the medium of photography, painting and mixed media, I propose to explore the substance of a particular site: its layered histories; state of being; and a consideration of its future set against a context of personal opinion, visualisation and imagination. I will examine how the physical qualities of the past are able to shape the appearance and meaning of the present, and the how this offers a field of possibility for the future.
The site of this research will be the city of Launceston, the third oldest city in Australia, and a city with a 200 year heritage, as well as indigenous heritage."
Damien Baumgartner
