Benzie Building at Manchester School of Art
New Creative Arts Leadership programme launches at Manchester School of Art
3 November 2022
Now accepting applications for September 2023
MA Creative Arts Leadership, an innovative new postgraduate that interrogates existing understanding and practices of ‘leadership’, and seeks to (co-)create new, diversified models and new role models, is now accepting applications for 2023.
The interdisciplinary programme will provide a deep dive into various forms and aspects of leadership, including personal and global, inclusivity, and ethical and environmental concerns. Students will synthesise their learnings into a final project taking the form of a new independent project or a continuation of professional practice for a public audience, in the form of an exhibition, research paper or portfolio.
Lead by Senior Lecturer Dr Kai Syng Tan, an artist, consultant, curator and academic whose work has been featured at the Biennale of Sydney, Tokyo Designer’s Week, New York’s MoMA and beyond, the course features research-active staff from the Manchester School of Art research centre who are experts in their field. As part of the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF), Art and Design research at Manchester Metropolitan was identified as being the 2nd most impactful amongst all UK universities, with 90% of research being rated as ‘World Leading’ or ‘Internationally Excellent’.
“Calling thinkers, dreamers and doers, makers and change-makers, and anyone keen to generate personal, organisational, and social change, and those who are intrepid and want to to reimagine a more equitable post-pandemic future.” Says Kai. “Join me on the Creative Arts Leadership MA and together we will explore — and seek to exemplify — new, creative, diversified possibilities of leadership.”
“Prioritising decolonised and environmentally-conscious models of change-making, this MA addresses gaps in current HE offerings in leadership development and arts management/policy, symbolised not least by Manchester Met alumni artist-turned-suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst.”
Students will also benefit from collaborations with Manchester Met’s triple-accredited Business School, providing a bedrock of knowledge that will equip graduates with the skills needed to navigate complex and shifting global challenges.
“As a specialist recruited to be the MA Programme Leader in September 2019, I have in the past three years conducted extensive research, including consulting over 100 academic and industry experts as well as community activists, to develop this unique course. I am delighted that the course will be the first in the faculty to collaborate with Manchester Met’s triple-accredited Business School. The MA entangles creativity with business acumen, sustainability and inclusion, Modules like ‘Curating Change’ (on neurodiversity and kindness), ‘Business as Unusual’ (on Personal and Global Leadership) and ‘Social, Ethical & Environmental Enterprise for Leaders’, complement optional units that you can customise from. You will further refine your own learning/leadership through a ‘Synthesis Project’, which can include industry placement and/or pilot experiments.
