fashion

Very deliberately, the course at KASK & Conservatorium chooses to approach fashion as a multifaceted artistic practice. The aim is not to train you as a designer 'in the service of' an existing system, but to challenge and invite you to develop your own and idiosyncratic artistic practice, in which the boundaries of the medium are constantly explored, questioned and above all pushed. More important than following the well-trodden path of fashion, are your individual participation and a thoroughgoing commitment to that practice.

At the heart of the programme are the workshops. Throughout the bachelors, in various projects you investigate your relationship to the medium, to society, its urgencies and challenges, the broad context, the professional field and finally to yourself as a visual artist. In the master, you forge all this into a coherent whole and arrive at your own unique signature, which you show in your master's thesis. Because every artist or designer also inevitably relies on craftsmanship, you will be taught its fundamentals in a number of separate courses. Depending on the needs of your own practice, you can then deepen these. In various general and specific theory subjects, you will build a strong frame of reference and sharpen your critical eye. Through internships, you get to know the professional field and decide how to position yourself in it.

Personal experimentation, thinking-through-doing, in-depth research, reflection and a continuous, intensive dialogue with lecturers form the basic approach to supervision. Here, the process is at least as important as the output and the latter can even deviate far from the traditional fashionable.

KASK & Conservatorium offers English-language master programmes in the visual arts, audiovisual arts, drama and music. Each year, dozens of foreign students choose the master programmes of our faculty to continue their studies. The presence of students from different international backgrounds is an enrichment for our educational tradition and provides an added value to the training of foreign master students and Flemish students moving on from the Dutch-language bachelor programmes alike.

The programmes are organized so as to facilitate encounters between Dutch-speaking and English-speaking students in informal contexts, in seminars and courses, and even in artistic projects they start up together. There are no differences in curricula, competencies, learning outcomes or organization between the English-language programmes and their Dutch-language counterparts. English-speaking candidates holding a master’s degree in music can also go in for the advanced master contemporary music or one of our postgraduate programmes.

Don’t hesitate to contact the study and learning track counsellors with your questions.