Understandings of artistic professionalism within the Academy of Fine Arts, the University of the Arts Helsinki

Project description

The Master of Fine Arts programme at Uniarts Helsinki offers the highest level of fine art education in Finland (Uniarts, 2025) and is recognised as an important site for the production of professional artists. The research project aims to understand how artistic professionalism is understood and embodied by staff and students on the MFA and the factors that shape whether students feel confident that they can pursue careers as professional artists. As part of the research, curriculum documents are analysed and semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 academic staff and 20 students on the MFA.

The research questions are:

• How is artistic professionalism understood and embodied by staff teaching on the MFA and how is it presented to students in the course literature?
• What ideas do students on the MFA have of artistic professionalism and how might these have evolved during their time on the programme?
• Which discourses of art and the artist inform student and staff understandings of artistic professionalism?

The interviews will be transcribed, followed by a thematic and discourse analysis of the findings. The research will offer a deeper understanding of how staff and students understand what it means to be a professional artist, which is important for curriculum development and policy making.

The study follows on from Sarah Rowles’ doctoral research (Rowles, 2024) which looked at how artistic professionalism was presented to and understood by students on a BA Fine Art programme in London and the factors that shaped whether students planned to pursue careers as artists after their degree.

Further reading

Rowles, S. (2024). Examining the role of undergraduate fine art education in the production of professional artists. Doctoral Thesis (EdD). Institute of Education, University College London. Available from: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197601/