Empirical Material

The present study is based on data from an interview investigation that was carried out in the period 2001-2007. A group of students at a practice-based MFA-program in visual art in Sweden were interviewed. The material used consists of interviews made at the end of their first year of the program in spring 2002 and at the beginning of their fourth year in fall/winter 2004-05. The initial group of students consisted of seven men and four women aged 21-25 at the time of the first interview. The interviews were quite open, with some main questions serving as a starting point for a conversation, and the students were encouraged to elaborate on the themes introduced. The second author of the present article was the interviewer. A typical interview lasted about one hour and took place at the school. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed. Other data, such as observations of activities and art products or diaries, would most likely have given a different and complementary picture of the relationship between the two focused aspects.

In the first interview, the students were specifically asked about their experiences of supervision so far, in the MFA program as well as in previous art education. Similarities and differences were brought up, usually by the students, along with pros and cons of different ways of teaching. The second interview included more specific questions on getting critique of their artwork, and the students were encouraged to exemplify their experiences of criticism. Those experiences mostly referred to individual supervision in studio conversations. Studentto-student critique and group critique were considerably less frequent. Nine students are included in the material. The original group had eleven students participating in the study. Two students left after one year and are not included in this analysis. Several students had gone through preparatory MFA, or MFA compatible, programs before attending the MFA program, and we saw no reason to exclude these experiences. These additional experiences rather proved to be an asset during the interviews, providing the students with a basis for comparison, and encouraging their reflections on the development of their relation to their artwork and to studio conversations.

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