Creative Arts and History of Art

Creative arts and history of art is a combination that asks you to both make and think, bringing together studio practice and critical analysis in a way that enriches both. History of art is a discipline concerned with how images, objects, and spaces have been produced, understood, and contested across cultures and centuries. It trains you to look carefully, to situate visual works in their social and intellectual contexts, and to develop arguments about what art does and why it matters.

Creative arts practice, meanwhile, places you in the studio, developing your own visual language and learning to work through ideas by making things.

At the School of Oriental and African Studies studying this combination means you engage with the visual cultures of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East alongside European and global traditions, offering a genuinely international and non-Eurocentric perspective on art's histories. You will examine how objects and images have moved across cultures, how traditions have influenced and transformed one another, and how contemporary artists respond to that global inheritance. The three-year programme includes a foundation year, providing a structured introduction to both disciplines before you progress to more advanced study.

You will develop skills in visual analysis, art historical research, and studio practice simultaneously.

Graduates from creative arts and history of art programmes move into a broad range of careers. Gallery and museum work, curation, arts administration, and cultural education are natural destinations, as are roles in art publishing, criticism, and journalism. Those with a stronger studio focus may build independent practice as artists or move into design, illustration, or art direction.

Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in art history, curating, fine art, or museum studies, positioning themselves for specialist roles in the cultural sector.