School of Arts

Study in our dynamic, energetic and creative community, where you’ll work with students from across our arts courses to broaden your artistic horizons while developing your own personal style. 

The School of Arts is a place where talent thrives and ambitions are realised. Our impressive facilities range from our producing and learning theatre, photography lab and purpose-built studios.

You’ll join a creative community that is supportive in helping students shape their individual identities and styles. Our courses focus on graduate employability, helping you to establish yourself as an artist; this may be through work placements, real world projects and the chance to showcase your work at events including the end of year Degree Show.

Our courses are led by practising artists, designers, performers, makers and creators with key industry contacts. Their fresh and dynamic approach to teaching encourages students to learn through risk-taking and experimentation; and through this pedagogic approach the next set of creatives are shaped and developed.

Explore our courses pages to find out about student success stories and realise your own creative ambition.

A male wearing jeans and a blue outdoor casual jacket kneels down on some grass with a tree behind him whilst looking to his left at a body of water

I would thoroughly recommend the University of Derby for Arts degrees; especially to proactive students who love personal support, want to maximise the use of facilities and embrace innovation!

Nathan Addai
School of Arts graduate

Virtual Tour

Delve deeper into the courses with our Virtual Tour, packed with subject information to help you make your choice, including tours of facilities and 360° views of award-winning accommodation.

Explore our Virtual Tour

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Facilities

Take a look at some of our impressive facilities...

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Alice Marshall dance performance

Exhibitions

See highlights from recent exhibitions from the School of Arts...

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Media Production programme leader, Phil Basi

Our Staff

Meet the staff in our School of Arts...

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Angela Bartram dogs and owners

Our Arts research

The Digital and Material Artistic Research Centre (DMARC) is the home to artistic research from the disciplines of Performing Arts, Music, Media, Art and Design within the School of Arts.

Find out more about DMARCFind out more about DMARC