About

- A contemporary learning experience without grades or pre-formatted curricula.
- Summer intensives in Berlin
- Fall and spring residencies in New York City
- Workshops, seminars, professional development, studio and performance tours
- Develop a sustainable artistic praxis rather than training in certain media or genre
- Design your own course of studies
- Realize your creative projects with curators, faculty and self-chosen advisors
- Keep professional and family obligations while advancing your career
- International faculty and students foster exchange across cultural boundaries
- Alumni and faculty form a collective with exhibition and performance opportunities
- Offsite study, critiques and advisement wherever you live and work
- Regular one on one reviews and crits with established and up and coming curators
- Thesis exhibition reviewed, critiqued and curated by several established international curators

Overview
Transart Institute offers an international low-residency MFA and a practice-based PhD program for working artists in a highly individualized format. The innovative MFA program consists of three intensive summer residencies with lectures, workshops, critiques, seminars, performances and exhibitions in Europe and two fall or spring residencies in New York. In the four semesters between residencies, students create their own course of study realizing individual art and research projects with the support of faculty and self-chosen artist advisors wherever they work and live. The MPhil/PhD is a three to four year full time degree program with an average work commitment of 30 hours per week. The Degree is only offered for practice-based research (creative work) accompanied by a written thesis that contextualizes the work.

The Institute’s programs are geared towards the development of a sustainable artistic praxis rather than training in certain media or genres, challenging students to think conceptually and work creatively in new ways. Current students work with animation, curating, digital media, film, gaming, graphic design, installation, painting, performance, photography, robotics, sculpture, sound, text, video, virtual reality.

A Brief History
Transart Institute was founded in 2004 by two artists. The MFA in New Media program was accredited by the Austrian Ministry of Education and Culture through Donau University Krems, Krems, Austria and the first summer residency was held in 2005 with an international body of 25 students and eight faculty. The current MFA Creative Practice program is validated through the School of Art and Media at the University of Plymouth in the UK.

The Unschool Art School
Unschooling as a term refers to learning through life experience rather than in an institutional framework. The Wikipedia entry is a good initial read. Unschooling refers to re-thinking and re-imagining the institution of learning. Transart grew out of our dissatisfaction with established institutional education based on models of control and discipline where pre-formed and pre-formatted knowledge is passed on to many students usually all in the same way. We think education should work the other way around: a multitude of models and input to choose from. Students decide what they want to do and the institute supports their goals with input and resources. We favour a mulit-perspective approach: critiques, evaluations, contextualizing your work, everything is done from as many perspectives as possible. The British educational system while highly regulated supports us well as it allows us to deliver an entire program without grades and provides a second set of eyes to look over everything that is being assessed. Most artists that come to our program have a pretty good idea where they want to go.  Transart is their vehicle to get there. Not that there aren’t any surprises along they way but in the end it is a student-driven program. You need to be self-motivated, inquisitive, and inspired to thrive here. The Institute is also a platform for faculty to expand their teaching praxis by making space for creativity and experimentation. Beyond its educational objectives, Transart is engaged in building an international community in support of students, alumni, faculty and their artistic and academic practices.

Transart Areas of Research
Memory, Forgetting, Trauma and the Archive
Creative Fiction and Experimental Non-fiction
Language/Image
Art and Social Technologies
Land and Sea
International Diaspora and Post-Colonialism
Role of Art in Peace, Meditation, Performance Activism
Liminality, Space/Place, Temporary Architecture
Foreignness, Otherness and the Uncanny

Other Transart Projects

Transartists are an international group of artist, academics, curators and theorists affiliated with Transart Institute through the graduate and doctoral program, journal, biennial or other Transart initiative. Collective membership is by invitation through a curatorial jury board. Transartist.net offers artists and curators resources and networks to foster international exhibitions, performances and events. Resources include: curator access to the Transart Collective pool of artists; a list of calls for submissions as well as a source for other calls and competitions, a network for international artists to create their own events; fellowships and curatorial advisement for artist initiated exhibitions and events, sponsored technical and funding support fora, a micro-financing network, start-up funding initiative, shared news, a residency studio exchange, multiple fora for initiating projects and events, discussion groups, social interventions, curator project critique and review resources, archive of Transartist exhibitions, performances and events, juried project funding for prop, project support exchange group and source for crit groups. http://www.transartist.net

Transartfest is a bi-annual two week events with exhibitions, concerts, discussion groups, seminars and workshops, performances, screenings, speed crits, alternative tours, and a multi-author book launch. All events are free and open to the public. Limited places are available for all one day workshops, seminars and discussion groups by application. http://www.transartfest.org

Transpire is a semi-annual art and cultural online journal. First issue will come out November 15, 2013.