The Arts School is a new faculty of Dartington Trust offering a distinctive portfolio of postgraduate degrees, short courses and events inspired by the experimentalism and innovation in art practice that has animated this place for almost 100 years.
This radical legacy is reimagined afresh on each of our courses, all of which are designed to help artists and creatives reshape their practice through the lens of contemporary issues.
ABOUT US: Read more about our history and ethos >

study with us
Find out what it’s like to study at Dartington, and explore our programmes
flexible learning models
We offer pathways to learning to suit all needs – including part time routes and blended learning

postgraduate programmes
Reimagining Performance Practice
MFA | MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
Reimagining Performance Practice is an integrative, transdisciplinary programme for performers, and anyone working in the field of performance, who are determined to reimagine performance and performative public engagement for the coming decades.
Poetics of Imagination
MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
Explore story and culture, examining how we have conjured stories from the earliest times to the present day. The course is centred around oral telling and opens to a broader spectrum of arts, examining the work of ancient to contemporary storytellers, writers and artists.
Cultural Production
MFA | MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
Study Arts Management at postgraduate level, researching the latest innovations in the sector, while also exploring Dartington’s own arts team as an example of best practice and innovation, and trialling your own ideas in the context of our unique collection venues and resources.
Arts and Ecology
MFA | MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
This is the most decisive decade in human history and unlike previous highly significant periods in history, we are fully aware of how pivotal these few years are to our species and the planet as human habitat. Arts and Ecology is a low residency master’s degree that asks how the whole of our humanity can be brought to this urgent conversation.
Arts and Place
MA | PGDIP | PGCERT
Open to practitioners and curators working in any art form including performance, writing, soundart, moving image, photography, digital art and fine art, this course puts particular emphasis on collaborative practice in response to an expanded understanding of place, via a unique residency-based programme.
research at dartington
why join us?

our venue
Dartington has a range of dance, theatre, music and art studios and a wealth of outdoor learning spaces including woods, farmland, the river Dart, the medieval deer park, food growing and landscaped gardens.

our faculty
Dartington Arts School has a rich interdisciplinary learning community of staff and students working with a passion to be change-agents for a sustainable future.
our programmes
Our low residency, innovative programmes offer you a learning experience rich in intellectual and creative exploration, with a flexibility that suits the complexities of modern life.

latest news & blogs
An echolocation from our Poetics team
Alice Oswald, Martin Shaw and Valentin Gerlier discuss the origin story and ever growing relevance of our MA Poetics of Imagination on which they all teach.
Dartington & Hospital Rooms join forces for arts education
Announcing a dynamic new partnership with Hospital Rooms to offer residencies for students on MA Arts & Place to explore their arts practice in professional mental health settings.
Student Stories: Martha Benedict blogs about Poetics
Writing for our blog, MA Poetics of Imagination student Martha Benedict explores the experience of studying at Dartington, and how the spaces in between the intensive sessions can be as valuable as the lectures themselves.
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Listen to Martin Shaw, Alice Oswald and Valentin Gerlier exploring the “creation myth” of our MA Poetics of Imagination. In this new podcast episode, or "echolocation" as they call it, the three lecturers also discuss what each of them brings to the teaching, and the reasons why Dartington is the only place to study in the magic space that lies between myth, poetry and human nature.
🔊 https://soundcloud.com/mjp-shaw/on-poetics-of-imagination
#dartingtontrust #poetics #dartingtonarts @drmartinshaw #highereducation #artmasters #postgraduate #creationmyth #explore #studynow #poetry #creativewriting
Can you help us refine our new degrees? We're planning a new undergraduate degree to compliment our BSc Regenerative Farming, and we'd like to invite you to help us fine tune what a broader ecologically-themed undergrad might look like for the future. If you're interested in taking part in a focus group to consider the plans and offer feedback then please fill out the "Take part in Higher Education focus groups" form via the link in our bio and we will be in touch.
Photo credit: Josh Pratt
#focusgroups #yourvoicematters #marketresearch #highereducation #newcourses #survey
Announcing a new £,6,000 Scholarship to join MA Arts and Place in April this year, following on from the news about our partnership with the brilliant @_hospitalrooms!
Recognising that underrepresented students face greater obstacles to educational achievement, we are offering a Scholarship to increase equity, diversity and inclusion.
The Arts & Place / Hospital Rooms Scholarship will include a £6,000 tuition fee reduction to study on the residency based @arts_and_place programme at Dartington @dartingtontrust and across the UK in 2023 and a guaranteed artist residency with Hospital Rooms.
For artists, curators, writers, filmmakers, performers and other creative practitioners...
APPLY NOW!
Deadline is Friday 17 March.
Sign up here for a Live Chat on 8 March for application guidance: https://campus.dartington.org/events/live-chat-arts-and-place/
For full details, head to our Scholarships page:
https://campus.dartington.org/study/fees/scholarships/
Please spread the word about this opportunity!
#arts_and_place #artsandplace #scholarships #dartington #hospitalrooms #southwestarts #artistinresidence #artistresidency #diversity #equity #inclusion
Super news! We are delighted to announce a new partnership between @dartingtontrust and @_hospitalrooms to offer residencies for students on our MA Arts & Place programme to explore arts practice in professional mental health settings.
Students will be invited to create work in response to a project that Hospital Rooms is currently undertaking in collaboration with @cornwallnhsfoundationtrust which will see them spending time on inpatient mental health wards in Redruth and Bodmin, and at some of Cornwall’s esteemed cultural organisations.
This project adds to an existing network of residency hosts on the MA Arts and Place, which includes @hauserwirthsomerset and @castcornwall, @ovada_gallery Oxford, @peacockandtheworm Aberdeen and @outlandia_fieldstation in the Scottish Highlands.
This opportunity builds on the important work of our two organisations in encouraging artwork that helps make a genuine difference to people’s lives. We look forward to seeing how our students respond to these settings later this year.
We will be announcing a Scholarship as part of this new initiative. Watch this space – another announcement coming soon!
Image credits
1: Amy McCarthy, Dining Room, Salus Ward, Torbay Hospital, 2022. Photo by Dom Moore, courtesy of Hospital Rooms
2: Mark Jessett @mjessett Dining Room, Beech Unit, Torbay Hospital, 2022. Photo by Dom Moore, courtesy of Hospital Rooms
#artsandplace #dartington
#hospitalrooms #arts_and_place #dartingtonartsschool
#cornwallnhsfoundationtrust #southwestarts