The Master of Arts in Art and Research Collaboration (ARC) is a practical taught programme offered by the Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), delivered over 18 months.

ARC is co-directed by Maeve Connolly and Sinead Hogan, and developed in dialogue with project partners such as Dublin City Council Arts Office, led by the LAB and the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

The ARC programme is open to artists, critics, curators and those engaging with art thinking and art practices via other roles. ARC supports expansive, experimental, imaginative and interdisciplinary enquiry into art practice, and also into areas that can be related to art through practice and research, such as science, design, architecture, media production, film, philosophy, education, engineering, literature, archaeology, history, fiction, geography and publishing.

ARC students have weekly tutorials, as well as regular group critiques, seminars and lectures. ARC students have full access to project-based studios, art production facilities and technical training workshops on the main IADT campus during term time, and can use the campus studios during the summer months.

ARC students have frequently collaborate on public exhibitions and events. Recent projects include the group exhibitions wax rhapsodic (2022) and cohost (online, 2021), both curated by Astrid Newman at the LAB Gallery, and Unassembled (2020), curated by Julia Moustacchi at the LAB Gallery.

Previous ARC projects include The Beholder’s Share (2015), Statecraft (2016) and ROSC: Fiction of the Contemporary (2017), all at IMMA, and The Turf Depot (2017) at Oonagh Young Gallery.

All ARC students complete an individual Major Project in their chosen form. To date, students have presented their work in exhibitions, performances, product launches, screenings and panel discussions at various public venues, including The Darkroom, The Chocolate Factory, IFI, the LAB, Millennium Court Arts Centre and St. Stephen’s Green. Students can devise books for publication by ARC Public Press and support is also available for those wishing to develop funding applications for PhD research.

For information on current ARC student projects see current research.