The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) provides artistic research and education in the arts.

In collaboration with a number of institutions for higher education in the arts, the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts offers two doctoral programmes in both music (docARTES), and visual arts and design (PhDArts).

The specialisations Art History and Museum Studies both engage in critical perspectives and in current practices and the development of a professional network. The specialisation Art History puts emphasis on the analysis of art works within a museal and curatorial context. Our courses, taught by art…

The experimental approach of science applied to artistic research

ACPA offers electives in visual arts, music or music philosophy. As a student of Leiden University or the University of the Arts The Hague* you can choose these electives offered by ACPA.

The specialisations Art History and Museum Studies both engage in critical perspectives and in current practices and the development of a professional network. The specialisation Museum Studies focuses on the art museum and places it in an artistic, cultural, social and political context. Our courses,…

Connect art and academia at ACPA

ACPA brings art practices and academic research together in a programme that enhances both cutting-edge practice and blue-sky research.

Celebrating 10 years PhDArts How do we establish, sustain and nourish a vital research culture in the arts? On 18 – 19 October 2018 the PhDArts Conference took place at the P.J. Veth building in Leiden.

The Arts, Media and Society specialisation will let you explore some of the most pressing issues in today’s society, as seen from the many perspectives offered by art, artists, and (digital) media.

What are the career prospects after the PhD?

The key questions posed in this dissertation centre on the interaction between spectator and artwork. What happens between a spectator and an artwork? How do we experience ‘meaning’ in an artwork? How may the process of interpretation be understood and articulated?

The Arts, Media and Society programme in its introductory year will give you a sound foundation of core knowledge about modern and contemporary art and art history. You will also start developing your academic skills. In the second and third year, you will explore the impact that that art has on society…

Research in the arts at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA)  

The pre-master's is a bridging programme for students who have applied for the MA Arts and Culture, but who, according to the Board of Admissions, still have deficiencies in their educational background. Once you have completed the pre-master’s programme, you will be admitted to the relevant specialization…

Central to the research of several cluster members are the social function and contexts of the production and consumption of medieval and early modern art, literature and media:

The pre-master's is a bridging programme for students who have applied for the MA Arts and Culture, but who, according to the Board of Admissions, still have deficiencies in their educational background. Once you have completed the pre-master’s programme, you will be admitted to the relevant specialization…

The master’s programme in Museum Studies at Leiden University is uniquely positioned at the intersection of Art History and Museum Studies. Informed by leading interdisciplinary research, this degree provides you with a strong academic foundation for a variety of careers in museums, galleries and heritage…

The Royal Academy of Art and the Royal Conservatoire together with the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) at Leiden University are developing a new platform for research in and with the arts, with an emphasis on collaboration.

Find out how to apply for Art History at Leiden University by following our step-by step guide.

In an interconnected global environment, the Bachelor in Arts, Media and Society meets a new market need: for multidisciplinary, digitally-fluent, international talent with a broad understanding of the impact and influence of the arts on society.

Thalia Hoffman is a visual artist and researcher working in film, video, performance, and public interventions in the area she lives in, east of the Mediterranean. In 2020 she graduated from the Leiden University PhDArts programme, with the thesis Guava, a conceptual platform for art-actions.

From October 2, ACPA alumnus and sound artist Budhaditya Chattopadhyay will exhibit his sound installation Expanded Object.

Are you ready to take on an extra challenge during your Leiden Bachelor programme? With options like Honours College and the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) you can add extra depth, intensity and EC to your study.

Are you ready to take on an extra challenge during your Leiden Bachelor programme? With options like Honours College and the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) you can add extra depth, intensity and EC to your study.

The head of MCS is also Director of the Leiden-based LDE Centre for Global Heritage and Development, President of LeidenGlobal, and staff member of the Heritage and Museums department of the Faculty of Archaeology. Joint activities are being developed at the interface between heritage and museum stu…

LENS is engaged in the drawing up a cartography of the mediascape, past and present, researching the dispositifs and ecologies of image production and presentation, which stretch across diverse geo-political areas as well as institutional, discursive and technological fields.

In art history, performance is categorized as performance art and defined as live-act. However, performance is no longer conceived of by artists as live-act only.

What is your preferred career path? Would you prefer a job that involves communication? Or do you want to work on research projects in a museum environment? Or would you like to continue in academia? You will find that your Arts, Media and Society degree is a perfect preparation for the career of your…

To be eligible for Art History at Leiden University, you need to meet the following admission requirements.

Leiden University enjoys an excellent worldwide reputation, built on over four centuries of outstanding teaching and research. The university is located in the historic city of Leiden, with easy access to many museums and art institutions.

Come and enjoy a unique free concert on 16 December. With performances by students from Leiden University, who alongside their studies are following the Practicum Musicae talent programme at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. Various ensembles, quartets and duos and a brand-new orchestra will treat…

How did a circle of Soviet artists and writers virtually unknown until perestroika turn into Russia’s most influential contemporary art movement? This book reconstructs the cultural history and canonization of a group of painters and poets known as the Moscow conceptualists, who paradoxically did not…

Subproject of

Of jars and gongs deals with the traditional ritual art of Ot Danum Dayak subsistence farmers from a stretch of tropical rainforest in the heart of Borneo. Together with the Ngaju, their neighbours to the south, they gloried in one of the most elaborate secondary mortuary rites in the world.

Leiden University College offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees within a Liberal Arts & Sciences programme that focuses on four Global Challenges: Peace & Justice, Sustainability, Prosperity, and Diversity. The programme’s environment is characterized by small-scale, interactive sessions…

The Guava Platform, which is at the centre of this PhD thesis, was initiated in 2014 as a conceptual framework of my art practice and research. The aim of the Guava Platform is to research and create possible techniques of art-actions that are part of my quest to continue to live in the conflicted landscape,…

This research cluster explores processes of cultural creation, reception and transformation within a wide range of societal contexts from the early Middle Ages until c. 1800.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Exploring the transformative potential of artistic research

Are you ready to take on an extra challenge during your Leiden Bachelor programme?