Graduate School of Global Arts
In this globalizing and also shrinking world,
people wander around the globe, searching for theirplace and community. While developed countries
are facing various challenges posed by capitalism,
developing countries are still in the midst of rapid
economic growth. Through contact with bothdeveloped and developing regions in the world, theGraduate School of Global Arts intends to enable
students to become creative professionals who can not
only develop and curate arts and cultural practices,
but also critically examine these cultural practices in
an attempt to present new contexts and to unveil thediverse, changing values in society today.
The Arts Studies and Curatorial Practices
program that was launched in Spring 2016, focuseson three core areas of specialization in order to study
the relationship between the arts and society. The
first core area is arts management, which aims tolink practitioners in the arts with their audiences.
It involves planning, producing, and managing
performances, artworks, projects, etc., as well as
raising funds and obtaining support. Facilitating
collaboration and coordination with stakeholders
involved is also part of arts management. In thisprogram, students explore effective management

photo by Ryohei Tomita

approaches within a variety of art fields—including
fine art, music, film and new media—through handson practice in project planning and management,
whilst also acquiring knowledge of the history andtheory of arts management. This approach helps
students understand how to form relationships withvarious institutions and key figures in society, such as
municipalities, corporations, foundations, the media,
NPOs, artists, and the public. Students also learn
how to respond to social change in order to establisha new relationship between the arts and society andenable the development of a creative society.
The second core area is curation. Curating
entails finding a theme and developing a concept
for an exhibition, as well as selecting suitable artists
and artworks, and an appropriate exhibition space.
The goal is to produce and manage an exhibitionin such a way that the ‘philosophy’ of the exhibition
is communicated visually. Curation also involves
the documentation and linguistic dissemination ofart works, as exemplified in the catalogues, which
are produced to record the exhibition for posterity.
To this end, by providing an environment in which
students can acquire key critical theories on art andcuration, and also undertake exhibition planningA

rts Studies and Curatorial Practices

at various levels and in specific contexts, the Arts
Studies and Curatorial Practices program equips
its students with the skills and criticality they need.
Curation requires a broad knowledge across many
fields, including the humanities, social sciences, andnatural sciences.
The program also provides opportunities forstudents to analyze the relationship between the artsand society from a social sciences perspective. Areasof research include sociology, media and culture,cultural economics, and cultural policy. Students will
examine the relationship between art and society
through literature reviews and fieldwork, taking into
account recent theoretical developments in this fieldof study. Research areas in this program also include
new topics in art and culture that are emerging
through the recent advancement of media and otherinformation technology.

Curriculum Policy

Diploma Policy

The Graduate School of Global Arts seeks
students who have a strong belief that they are
responsible for establishing relationships between thearts and society, and possess the creative flexibility
to energetically engage in discussions arising aroundtradition and innovation. In addition, students are
expected to have a linguistic ability that is necessary
for theorization of their own academic research aswell as the ability to think and communicate thatenable them to succeed in the internationally diverseprograms.

The Graduate School of Global Arts aims to train
students to become curators and producers whounderstand different genres of the arts including finearts, music, film and new media from multifaceted
perspect ives and are able to create var ious
opportunities for artists to exhibit and perform. We
also aim to nurture researchers who analyze culturaland social aspects of various artistic activities, andspecialists who propose and practice cultural policies
through such analytic studies.
With the view to nurturing advanced specialists
who can work at art and cultural institutions,businesses and government offices, a master’s degree
is granted to students who have earned the numberof credits required by the credit policy of the schooland have successfully passed an examination such asa review of the master’s thesis.

Based on the school philosophy of “the bridgingof theory and practice”, students are expected toacquire a global perspective and networking methods,
which can be achieved by attending introductory
and advanced lectures on basic and applied theories,
project-based practical seminars, and seminars byguest speakers, leading practitioners and theorists inJapan and abroad.
The program enables students to understandcultural and social situations that lie behind art events
all over the world, and to study cultural policies andcultural economics that support relations between thearts and society, while learning to actually plan andimplement cultural projects.

Admission Policy