The Graduate Program in Visual Arts of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (PPGAV-UFRN) contributes to the expansion of graduate studies in the regional system of the Northeast and nationally. PPGAV-UFRN was approved by CONSEPE/UFRN on October 24, 2023. After the submission of the Proposal for a New Program (APCN), it received a favorable opinion from the ARTS/MUSIC area and was recommended by CAPES at the 231st meeting of the CTC-ES in September 2024, with the accreditation decree having been published by the Ministry of Education (MEC) on March 20, 2025 in the Federal Official Gazette (DOU).

The Academic Master's Degree Program in Visual Arts has the mission of creating an innovative space for the development and production of knowledge. Thus, the general objective of the PPGAV-UFRN is to prepare professionals for the development of research activities in Visual Arts and teaching in higher education, to promote the improvement of personnel to work in the areas of creation and production in Visual Arts, in mediation in educational sectors of museums, cultural and heritage institutions, in addition to working in the field of public policies for arts and culture, through consultancies and curatorship.

The program has a concentration area in Theories and Praxis of Visual Arts that brings together projects in two lines of research and seeks to understand the artistic phenomenon, production, and knowledge in Visual Arts, both past and present. Research is developed on artists, encompassing their creative processes and conceptual formulations; research on curators, covering their practices and modes of exhibition; research on the reception of art and its mediation processes; and research by theorists and historians on art, including studies on aesthetic experience and art criticism.

Lines of Research:

1. History of Art, Aesthetics, and Mediation:

This area studies the specifics of the artistic object, the sensory experience, and its contexts of mediation. It considers theoretical research, historical narratives, aesthetic analyses, and criticism. It includes research on the trajectories of artists, art critics, and other agents; art collections in public and private holdings; of art exhibitions, curatorial practices, and mediation processes in the visual arts.

2. Poetics and Art Productions:

This line prioritizes the development of artistic creation projects and processes, emphasizing poetics and the construction of visual thought, based on practices intertwined with the technical and conceptual particularities of art. It encompasses the work of artists, experimentation, and production in Visual Arts, taking into consideration two-dimensional, three-dimensional, technological, performative, media, and hybrid languages and media.

Graduates will be qualified to work as professionals and researchers in the field of Visual Arts in cultural projects, university institutions, historical and artistic heritage organizations, cultural foundations, museums, art galleries, as well as working as artists, curators, managers, coordinators, and mediators in art exhibitions. Thus, this profile can fill gaps in the professional field of art and culture in Rio Grande do Norte, promoting the preparation of qualified professionals to work in research and production in Visual Arts.

Program’s institutional e-mail address: ppgav@cchla.ufrn.br  

Coordination’s institutional e-mail address: coord.ppgav@cchla.ufrn.br