Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art - Art and Media, Master of Arts (Art and Design)
At VICCA, artists, curators and researchers aim to understand, challenge and shift the paradigms of contemporary art and the world around us.
Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA)
Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA) is a two-year transdisciplinary Master’s Degree Programme at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Finland.
***Images taken before the Covid-19 pandemic prior to official recommendations for social distancing and mask use. Please follow current guidelines and stay safe!
Get to know us
How to apply to ViCCA
The admissions to Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA) are organised once a year. The current application time is December 1, 2021 – January 3, 2022.
The programme merges theoretical and practice-based artistic and curatorial processes, offering an opportunity for the students to develop, deepen and re-contextualise their skills and knowledge across disciplines. At ViCCA, the faculty works with students to diversify and develop their knowledge base, offering concrete opportunities to develop research competencies, methodologies and a sense for artistic and critical thinking.
Art, visual culture and the forms of organisation that go into making them public cannot be described as a mirror of society but rather they are and always have been an active agent in worldmaking. Characterised by a strong transdisciplinary approach across art, science and technology, ViCCA offers students access to emerging knowledge and practices at the intersections of multiple fields through an arts-driven engagement with societal, political, economic, ecological and philosophical concerns.
Encouraging experimentation with diverse practices, contexts and forms of research, ViCCA is open to artists, practitioners, curators and research-oriented individuals with different backgrounds and experience, who are looking for opportunities to understand, challenge and shift the paradigm of contemporary art and the world around us.
Do you want to study in the Nordics in Finland? At Aalto University science and art meet technology and business. We believe in the power of curiosity and encourage our students to explore the unknown as well as to learn and do things in a whole new way.
TOKYO is a student association which brings together the students of Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture as well as its former students, the alumni.
News
MA ViCCA Thesis Presentations Autumn, 14 October 2021
Join us online for thesis presentations from the Master's Program in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art.
The Waiting Room (Practising Building a Nest), a hand-printed book by Athanasía Aarniosuo and Ronya Hirsma
Between January and June 2021, Athanasía Aarniosuo and Ronya Hirsma shared their thought, fears, and hopes in a series of letters to each other.
Pyydän lupaa // Asking for permission, Poetry Video by Kirsi-Marja Moberg
MA ViCCA student's poetry video and interactive performance, Asking for permission, depicts the things in our lives that we ask permission for.
Concreate Urban Art Festival Comes to Keran Hallit
Artists transform the interior of Keran Hallit for the Concreate Urban Art Festival 2021.
Like Shadows Through Leaves Awarded FIPRESCI Prize at Oberhausen
{if your bait can sing the wild one will come} Like Shadows Through Leaves wins the FIPRESCI Prize at Oberhausen 2021.
ViCCA Production 2021: Sometimes I Go Places
ViCCA Production addresses the idea that artistic practice and research requires experimenting with how the practice and research is performed to a public
ViCCA students' exhibition (Un)seen: In the Dazzle of Infrastructure at Galleria Aarni
The exhibition (Un)seen: In the Dazzle of Infrastructure starts from an analysis of infrastructure with a focus beyond its more tangible manifestations. Infrastructure shapes not only our physical landscape, but our habits, culture, and temporality. It is at its most effective when it blends seamlessly into our surroundings and evades our consciousness. The exhibition’s approach to infrastructure is built around the solar, each project drawing different connections to infrastructural byproducts and our connection to the sun. (Un)seen: In the Dazzle of Infrastructure is a collective curatorial project and exhibition realized by ViCCA students. It features works both by course participants and artists selected through an open call.
TICK TALKs: Questing Ticks with Laura Beloff, Kira O'Reilly and Jani Sormunen
Artists Laura Beloff and Kira O'Reilly discuss methods of tick population fieldwork with Jani Sormunen from University of Turku.
On the Philosophy of Central European Art Published by Rowman & Littlefield's Lexington Books
Senior University Lecturer Max Ryynänen's book is an introduction to the history of the concept and the institution of (fine) art, from its ancient Southern European roots to the establishment of the modern system of the arts in eighteenth century Central Europe.
Museum of Impossible Forms wins State Art Prize 2020
ViCCA congratulates its students and alumni who have been active (and often founding) members of the Museum of Impossible Forms (est. 2017) – an anti-racist and queer-feminist cultural center in the suburb of Kontula – for the 2020 State Art Prize that they received from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Archive
MA ViCCA Thesis Presentations Spring, 9-10 June 2021
Join us online for thesis presentations from the Master's Program in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art.
MA ViCCA Thesis Presentations 20 May 2021
We continue into the Spring term with thesis presentations from students completing their Masters in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art.
Like Shadows Through Leaves Selected for 67th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
{if your bait can sing the wild one will come} Like Shadows Through Leaves by The Migrant Ecologies Project has been selected for the International Competition at the 67th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
International Women's Day 2021: Feminist Practices and Practitioners from the MA ViCCA Programme
A series of contributions from practitioners who are speaking, listening, conversing, making, reading and writing about feminist practices.
MA ViCCA Thesis Presentations Spring 18 March 2021
The first presentation of 2021 from MA ViCCA graduating students will take place on Thursday 18 March.
LASER at Aalto Launches with Adaptation and Bodies in Context, Moderated by Laura Beloff
Adaptation and Bodies in Context will inaugurate LASER at Aalto University. Moderated by Laura Beloff, Head of the ViCCA programme.
peripheries in parallax: BRAVE NEW PERIPHERIES, Opening Conference and Art Event
peripheries in parallax: BRAVE NEW PERIPHERIES is a two-part conference mapping out the implications and alliances of ‘peripheries’ and ‘peripheral approaches’ through art, artistic research and related fields in society. Alongside the conference, a durational, curated Art Event ‘MATTER’ takes place at the Aalto University Campus. The opening event will be held on the 22nd January 2021.
MA ViCCA Thesis Presentations 14 December 2020
MA students in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art present their thesis research in an online event.
ViCCA Students Launch Walk & Talk Initiative: #1 Mushroom Picking in Nuuksio
The first ViCCA Walk & Talk took place on 17 October 2020 in the Nuuksio National Park.
ViCCA Thesis Fall II Presentations, 26-27 November 2020
MA ViCCA students present their thesis research and papers in an online event.
Inaugural ViCCA CROW Awards & Graduation Picnic (and Senior CROW Award for Retiring Senior Lecturer, Taina Rajanti)
17.6.2020
On 17 June as we emerged from lockdown, the MA program in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA) hosted an appropriately-socially-distanced, graduation picnic beside the Aalto University amphitheatre.
Online MA Evaluations Next Week at ViCCA 15-17 June
Online MA Evaluations Next Week at ViCCA 15-17 June
The archive of projects and events which were organised before 2019 can be found at vicca.fi
Our staff
Laura Beloff
Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Artistic Practices and Head of Doctoral Education in the Department of Art & Media (DAM)
Max Ryynänen
Senior University Lecturer in Theory of Visual Culture
Bassam el Baroni
Assistant Professor of Curating and Mediating Art
Lucy Davis
Professor of Artistic Practice, Contemporary Art
Pia Euro
Lecturer
Patrizia Costantin
Head of Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA) major and University Lecturer in Curating
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