Language
  • English
Format
  • Full time
Start date
  • September
Location
  • Maastricht
Events

Arts and Culture: Arts and Heritage: Policy, Management and Education

Which policies and practices can be deployed to manage our cultural and artistic heritage? This specialisation explores approaches towards the interpretation, management, and dissemination of art and heritage within private and public organisations.

Events
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Why this programme

The specialisation in Arts and Heritage: Policy, Management and Education examines the concepts of ‘heritage’ and ‘art’ as expressions of both past and present culture. You will develop insights into these key concepts and how their meaning has changed throughout history. You will evaluate and debate issues related to policy, appreciation, interpretation, use, conservation, education and management. The programme will also teach you academic skills and professional skills in the practical organisation and development of artistic projects in the context of cultural management.

Teacher Anna Elffers explains how the Dutch-language specialisation in Art and Heritage is structured and how this programme prepares students for a career in the Dutch cultural sector.

Watch the video

What will you learn?

You will study the time, place and group-dependent definitions of art and heritage, and you will learn how these differences translate into distinctive cultural practices. In doing so, you develop the capacity to apply different approaches towards the interpretation, management and dissemination of art and heritage within a range of private and public, established and grass-root organisations. By working across the traditional boundaries that separate academic and professional disciplines and institutions, you learn to build bridges between the reflexive and theoretical work of arts and heritage studies, and the work of arts and heritage practitioners. The specialisation has an interdisciplinary theoretical foundation, building on insights and methods from (art) history, sociology of the arts, cultural economics, cultural management, memory studies, and critical museum and heritage studies.

 

English or Dutch?

This one-year programme is also offered in Dutch: Kunst en Erfgoed. The Dutch programme and the English programme have a large number of common activities for both tracks.

Programme highlights

The specialisation in Arts and Heritage: Policy, Management and Education is unique because it:

  • Establishes effective links between theory and practice
  • Allows you to customise your own programme
  • Is truly international: 35 students in the 2022/23 programme, with 16 different nationalities
  • Has very engaged academic staff
  • Is highly valued by students when it comes to the quality of teaching
  • Offers a unique, small-scale, interactive and international learning environment
  • Applies the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) educational method, in small groups with a maximum of 15 students
MA Art, culture and heritage

Customise your programme

The programme has a broad set-up while giving you the freedom to personalise your programme and to develop your full potential. Firstly, by familiarising yourself with the interdisciplinary field of arts and heritage. Secondly, by choosing whether you want to do an internship or an in-depth elective with a practical project. For the electives, you will specialise in one of the following three fields:
Arts & Audiences
• Cultural Industries & Social Change
• Heritage & Society

The teaching staff has strong ties in the arts and cultural sector, both in the Netherlands and abroad, which offers you a wide variety of project and internship opportunities. Many students choose to conduct an internship in the Netherlands or abroad.

Once you have finished the programme, you will have both a theoretical and practical background in Arts and Heritage: Policy, Management and Education. You will have gained professional skills and academic research experience through our integrated skills trainings. In this programme, you are offered guest lectures, seminars, fieldtrips.

International classroom

From day one of this programme, you will be challenged with differing viewpoints and experiences as you interact with staff and students from all over the world. Most of the students in this programme in the academic year 2020/2021 came from outside the Netherlands and represented on average 16 different nationalities. Such diversity creates an international atmosphere that is strengthened by the international orientation of the programme. To further increase your international profile, you can choose to do an internship or complete a project abroad during the second semester.

 

Professional skills

You will not only develop expertise in theory, but will also receive training in professional skills such as:

  • Cultural policy analysis and evaluation
  • Cultural management
  • Arts marketing
  • Presentation
  • Arts and museum education

 

Site visits & study trips

Trips to art institutions, heritage sites, museums and government agencies will enable you to widen your experience with professional practice and to apply what you have learned in the Arts and Heritage curriculum. Maastricht is ideally located for study trips in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France.

Problem-Based Learning

As with many Maastricht University programmes, this programme is taught using Problem-Based Learning (PBL). In tutorial groups of 12 to 15 students, you will seek solutions to concrete ‘problems’ taken from situations involving current issues in arts and heritage. Instructors act as facilitators, giving help as it is needed. This allows you to develop the independence and problem-solving skills that you will need in the field, such as the ability to:

  • Evaluate and structure information
  • Present your viewpoint
  • Work in an international team
  • Conduct and chair discussions
  • Negotiate
  • Formulate a working plan to deal with a problem at hand
Problem-Based Learning

Seminars & guest lectures

You will also participate in seminars and guest lectures, in which experts discuss their knowledge of specific facts, concepts and theories as well as their experiences in professional practice.

 

Internship organisations

Students have, amongst others, done internships at:

  • Guggenheim Museum, New York
  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Paris
  • Sotheby’s, Melbourne
  • TEFAF, The European Fine Art Fair, Maastricht/Amsterdam/New York

You can choose to do a regular internship or an extra-curricular internship, and you will learn how to build up your own professional network throughout the programme.

PREMIUM honours programme

PREMIUM is our Honours programme for high-performing master’s students. If selected, you will work in an interdisciplinary team on a project for a real client from the public or private sector (e.g. Cisco, DHL, EcoAct). Along with guidance from a project mentor, you will receive individual coaching focused on your personal and professional development. You will also attend several workshops and events designed to cultivate valuable knowledge and skills, as well as build a network that provides you with the best preparation possible for the job market.

Are you up for the PREMIUM challenge?

More about PREMIUM 

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