- Year One
- Year Two
- Year Three
Summer
Course |
---|
Graduate Studio |
Graduate Critique Seminar |
Contemporary Art Seminar |
Visiting Artist Lecture Series |
Optional Studio Elective |
Mentor Guided Independent Study |
Winter
Course |
---|
Library Research Course |
Winter Review |
Mentor Guided Independent Study |
Graduate Studio |
Summer
Course |
---|
Graduate Studio |
Graduate Critique Seminar |
Critical Studies Seminar |
Art History/Critical Studies |
Visiting Artist Lecture Series |
Mentor Guided Independent Study |
Winter
Course |
---|
Graduate Thesis Writing 1 |
Winter Review |
Mentor Guided Independent Study |
Graduate Studio |
Graduate Thesis Writing 2 |
Summer
Course |
---|
Graduate Studio (Thesis) |
Graduate Critique Seminar Elective |
Professional Practice |
Learning Outcomes
Establish a self-directed studio practice focused on ideas, materials, and a process of making that is responsive to historical context and relevance.
Demonstrate an ability to identify paradigms and evaluate levels of meaning within contemporary art and to situate one’s creative practice in response.
Expand one’s understanding of art within both local and global society. Articulate aesthetic inclinations within clearly delineated historical, political, cultural, and power relations.
Actively seek engagement and dialogue with a contemporary arts community in the program and beyond. Develop a sustained model for graduate level research, production, promotion, communication, and writing skills.
Learn More
Curriculum Description
The eight-week Summer Residency includes graduate seminars, critiques, studio visits, visiting artist lectures, technical workshops, and focused studio time. Students are provided with studio space and access to PNCA’s shop facilities to make new work over the course of the summer session. Technicians can assist with tutorials and fabrication. While the majority of the students’ studio work is developed and guided by mentors in subsequent terms, the summer provides valuable peer-to-peer observation and focus guided by MFA faculty and visiting artists.
Each week during the Residency, the program hosts a Visiting Artist or Scholar, introducing MFA students to diverse artistic, scholarly, philosophical, and cultural voices. The Graduate Seminars expose students to contemporary art histories, strategies, artists, curators, critics, and systems that influence and drive the expansion of the current art world. In these courses, art and theory are approached in an interconnected fashion, with an emphasis on the flow and interchange of significant ideas between the visual and the textual—art in dialogue with theory and history. These seminars provide students with an intellectual community and critical forum in which they may test, temper, and enlarge the ideas that underlie their artistic goals.
Electives
Elective courses are chosen in consultation with the MFA Chair and allow opportunities for new exploration of ideas and skills acquisition. Global study abroad and internship opportunities incorporate as much flexibility as possible to support the student’s specific area of specialization and career interest.
Questions?
For more information about the Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies program, get in touch with Ryan Pierce.