School of Creative Arts and Media

Study with us and become a part of our island’s creative revolution.

Our vibrant creative community brings together students, staff, researchers and industry across Fine Arts, Design, Media and Communications, Music and Theatre.

We work in brand-new inner-city facilities at Inveresk and in Hobart’s Creative Arts Precinct, which combines creative spaces in a converted 19th-century factory on the Hobart waterfront with cutting-edge technology at the $110 million Hedberg.

Our programs are distinguished by the opportunities they present for students to work across their disciplines and collaborate on creative projects. If you are making a film, you will have the opportunity to work with a music student to develop sound design. If you are a fine arts student, you have the opportunity to work in a theatre production on props, costumes and sets. All of our students come together for Creative Lab, a festival-like event, to devise new works and present them to the public.

Through these experiences, students learn how to expertly communicate, creatively problem-solve, project manage and use their discipline expertise for new ways of thinking and creating collaboratively. These skills provide clear pathways to many creative careers, from musicians, artists, designers, media content creators, festival directors and producers. They prepare graduates to engage with and enter the creative and cultural sector.

Study with us

Engage with world-class creatives

Through our Artist in Residence, Arts Forum, masterclass programs and internships, you will engage with acclaimed artists, performers and creatives working with MONA, TMAG, QVMAG, Dark Mofo, Festival of Voices and other partners.

Mentoring

You’ll be mentored by approachable teachers who happen to be some of Tasmania’s most exceptional creative talent, while experimenting and collaborating with students from all walks of life.

Career-ready

Graduate with work-ready skills and knowledge, a portfolio of genuine projects and a professional network to help start your creative career in Australia’s $14.7 billion arts and entertainment sector.

Our undergraduate courses

Our postgraduate courses

Our research

The School of Creative Arts and Media brings together diverse approaches, viewpoints, and methods of researching. Ranging from practice-led visual and performing arts research to scholarly work that has helped to define understanding of key contemporary issues, our researchers enrich communities through artistic and cultural vibrancy.

Our researchers drive innovation and creative solutions by working with our communities to imagine and mobilise action on building a better future. We create distinctive research in collaboration with industry and other research partners, and welcome opportunities to partner.

The School of Creative Arts and Media has three research theme areas:

This theme area acknowledges our pivotal role as an advocate for and with the creative and cultural industries and communities. This includes not only high-impact work specifically about the creative and cultural industries in Tasmania and beyond, but also engaging with new forms of work including novel modes of production, distribution and reception including in regional areas.

We recognise our unique position in the thriving and innovative local arts and cultural ecology and strive to work with partners to lead new thinking about cultural participation.


1.	What a Machine, 2023 (installation detail).  Griffith Regional Art Gallery, NSW
What a Machine, 2023 (installation detail). Griffith Regional Art Gallery, NSW

Featured project

Dr Tony Curran – ‘What a Machine

In What a Machine (2023), Dr Tony Curran used the algorithmic structure of artificial intelligence to plan an iterative process of painting that is systematic, yet feels distinctly human made.  Combining digital mark-making with tropes of abstract expressionism these Attention Machines (paintings and code-based works) aim to offset the attentional deficit of smartphone culture.

This theme area houses our innovative creative interpretations of environments, including ecological, scientific, historical, and cultural environments. We are committed to respecting and supporting Indigenous knowledges and practices.

Our work in Creative Arts and Health includes building the capacity for creative forms of health communication and helping to shift community understanding of the relationship between creativity and health.

We invite expressions of interest to work with regional, remote and diverse communities to utilise our strengths in sound and visual communication to build community platforms and collaborate with groups across our island and other places we are connected to.


Belonging, Detachment and the Representation of Musical Identities in Visual Culture book cover
Belonging, Detachment and the Representation of Musical Identities in Visual Culture book cover

Featured project

Dr Arabella Teniswood-Harvey ‘Musical Identities and Visual Culture’

A new open-access book co-edited by Dr Arabella Teniswood-Harvey (Head of Discipline, Music) and Prof Antonio Baldassarre (Head of Research and Development at Lucerne School of Music, Switzerland), has been published by Hollitzer Verlag, Vienna in August 2023.

Entitled Belonging, Detachment and the Representation of Musical Identities in Visual Culture the collection includes 28 essays by Australian and international scholars and practitioners. The University of Tasmania’s art collection is represented through Arabella’s essay ‘Centred on the Periphery: Visual Art, Cultural Nationalism and the Development of an Australian Musical Avant-Garde in 1960s Hobart’, which explores, amongst other works, the portraits of conductor Thomas Matthews by Jack Carington Smith. The contribution of recent University of Tasmania PhD graduate Benjamin Hillier - ‘Austral Aliens – Australian Extreme Metal Paratexts and Australian Identity’ – brings the book to a lively conclusion.

This research theme maps the environmental, technological, social and other changes that impact our immediate and broader communities in documented and emergent ways.

Our researchers explore the impact of new artefacts and creative modes on our cultures and practices, including archival and historical work, and lead in understanding the transformation of design and making, performance, creative reuse and repair.

This work investigates how social change manifests in people and places, through cultures of protest and resistance, policy and decision-making, and technological and social innovation.


Claire Konkes
Dr Claire Konkes

Featured project

Dr Claire Konkes – The Green Lawfare Project

Green lawfare describes the strategic use of law, especially within court systems, during environmental conflict and climate action and conceptualises law as a "field" defined by epistemological traditions, institutional structures and professional practices. The Green Lawfare Project is investigating how mediated networks across the globe are sharing "contagious ideas", methods and strategies that are transforming legal approaches to environmental and climate justice. Through observing these networks, the flows of information and the enactment of legal action, the project is deepening our understanding of the material, political and symbolic implications of using law to both promote and hinder efforts to address the global ecological crisis at local, national and transnational levels.

Learn more about Claire

Contact us

Students

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Location

Launceston: Art and Theatre
2 Invermay Road, Inveresk
Hobart: Art Hunter St
Hobart: Music, Theatre, Media
Hedberg, 19-27 Campbell St

Postal address

Private Bag 57
HOBART TAS 7001

Locked Bag 1362
LAUNCESTON TAS 7250