The one-year Academic Master prepares professionals for their entry into the world of photography, arts, and national and international communication, integrating theoretical study with projects, workshops and guided visits to research centers and exhibition spaces, audiovisual production facilities, publishing houses, theatres, artists’ studios, museums and contemporary art galleries. The second part of the programme is dedicated to a period of internship in collaboration with a network of partner companies and institutions that facilitate the entry of students into the job market.
Over the AM, students will have the opportunity to:
The Academic Master is an intensive and cross-disciplinary study path directed at providing students with advanced training and professionalisation in the field of photography and contemporary visual design.
Through theoretical courses and frontal lectures, practical workshops and projects, guided field visits and an internship period, students define their skills and develop methods to deal with the Italian and international world of photography, coming into direct contact with established industry professionals and the jobs market.
The educational path consists of two parts to provide the necessary skills and a cross-sectoral methodological approach.
The first part give students an in-depth knowledge of the field and analyse the contemporary status of the photographic image through the main courses in history of photography, digital photography, project methodology of visual communication, photo-documentation, phenomenology of image, computer graphic.
The second part of the programme is dedicated to practical courses and intensive workshops and to the internship, in both public and private institutions (museums, art galleries, foundations, audiovisual production facilities and archives, auction houses, publishing houses), together with the research aimed at the development of the thesis final project.
Department: Visual Arts
Area: Visual Arts
Title Awarded: First Level Academic Master Degree
Credits: 60 CFA
Starting: October 2025
Duration: 1 year
Languages: Italian and English
Campus: Milan
Our Faculty
Marco Scotini is the Artistic Director of the FM Centre for Contemporary Art, Milan, and Head of the Exhibitions Programme at PAV, Parco Arte Vivente, Turin. He is the Scientific Director of the Archivio Gianni Colombo and the Bert Theis Archive. He has been a member of the Italian Council since 2019. He has been Visual Arts Department Head since 2004. After many collaborations with international artistic institutions (Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Documenta, Kassel, MAXXI, Rome, SALT, Istanbul, Castello di Rivoli), he curated the Albanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2015), co-curated the 1st Anren Biennale (2017) and he has been the Artistic Director of the 2nd Yinchuan Biennale in China (2018). Among his most recent publications: Utopian Display. Geopolitical Curating (Quodlibet NABA Insights, 2019), Politiques de la Végétation (Eterotopia France, 2019), Artecrazia (DeriveApprodi, 2017).
A photography critic and curator, he curated exhibitions and monographies of artists such as Mark Cohen, Guido Guidi, Olivo Barbieri, Takashi Homma, Linda Fregni Nagler, Boris Mikhailov, Francesco Jodice, and many others. Among his most recent publications are catalogues about th work by Luigi Ghirri, Alec Soth and Erik Kessels. The curator of CAMERA Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, from 2015 through 2017, he has participated in conferences and seminars in numerous Italian and international institutions, including Columbia University in New York. An associate editor of Fantom, a curatorial platform, he has recently curated the exhibition Give Me Yesterday and Questioning Pictures. Stefano Graziani at the Fondazione Prada Osservatorio. He is the Artistic Director of Foto/Industria, the Biennial of Photography on Industry and Work at Fondazione MAST, Bologna.
NABA’s Career Services & Industry Relations Office can provide you with support and guidance during your transition from the academy to the professional world. Our staff can help you develop self-promotion tools and assist you during your first steps into the world of work.
The Office develops relationships with companies in order to set up internship agreements, employment opportunities, and interactive projects between students and businesses.
NABA has developed strong relationships with leading companies that provide internships for NABA students, including Fondazione La Triennale di Milano, Fondazione Museion—Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Bolzano, galleria Form Content (London), BAK—basis voor actuele kunst, Oliviero Toscani Studio, Sotheby’s Italia, Skira Editore, Associazione Viafarini, Artshow Edizioni, Careof Organization for Contemporary Art, and Open Care.
Companies
The Master in Photography and Visual Design cooperates or has cooperated with Canon, Condé Nast, Contrasto, De Agostini, Fabbrica el Vapore, Fotografi Senza Frontiere, Frieze, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Guggenheim Museum Venice, Mack Books, Magnum Photos, Mondadori, Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea, Ogilvy & Mather, Paradox Amsterdam, Piccolo Teatro di Milano, RCS Quotidiani, Skira, and the World Wide Fund of Nature.
Continue your academic career:
Kick-off your career. Among the career opportunities: