Doctor of Fine Arts (4 yr)

About this programme

Studies in the doctoral programme offer competence to carry out independent and creative artistic research, and an opportunity to develop research-based artistic activity. The doctoral programme is aimed at artists working within contemporary art. Artist-researchers graduating from the Doctoral Programme in Fine Arts develop and renew fine arts: their creation, research, and teaching. As specialists in their fields, they engage in a dialogue with various actors in the society, create art and produce information, knowledge, and insights based on art-related practices, which can be shared with collaborators and other actors in the field and interwoven in societal discussion. Doctoral training at the University of the Arts Helsinki develops the artist-researchers’ ability to apply their skills as artists, researchers, pedagogues, and specialists in their field. A dissertation for the Doctor of Fine Arts degree can consist of exhibitions, exhibition curations, individual works of art, artistic processes or experimental projects and their articulation, conceptualisation, and theorisation. A dissertation usually includes one or more artistic elements and a written section. Electronic documentation of the dissertation is also required. The artistic elements are products of artistic research that will be published. The written section, parallel to the artistic elements, motivates the implementation and objectives of the research in relation to other research and practices in the field.