2019-2020 G R A D U AT E PROGRAMS
BOSTON LOW RESIDENCY
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
GRADUATE PROGRAMS
MASTER OF FINE ARTS LOW RESIDENCY PROGRAM IN BOSTON MassArt’s low residency MFA offers artists and educators a 60-credit terminal degree, earned in two academic years and three on-campus summer residencies. The program is an ideal choice for working artists or educators who thrive in a crossdisciplinary, collaborative community. During intensive 7-week summer residencies, MFA students work in studios on our Boston campus in the heart of the city’s arts district. They are immersed in a community of students and faculty working in a wide range of media and utilizing diverse technical and conceptual strategies. Visiting artists and critics join the community throughout the summer, offering presentations, engaging in dialogue, and providing feedback to students.
Above: Erik Nohalty (MFA ‘16) Calhoun Public Beach Access, 2016 Left: Jessica Cofrin (MFA ‘14) Pink Sweatshirt, 2014 Below: Eddie Rath (MFA ‘16), Thesis Installation view, 2016
In the fall and spring semesters, students work one-on-one with mentors who advise their studio practice. Online courses in art history and critical theory assist students in placing their work in the context of historical and contemporary practice. Through online discussion groups, students stay engaged with their community and build on collaborations established during residencies. Students conclude their degree with a third summer residency, which is focused on the refinement and presentation of thesis work. After final reviews, they offer a presentation and thesis exhibition, both of which are open to the public.
Cover Image: Robert Trumbour (MFA ’18)
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VISITING ARTISTS AND CRITICS
MFA FACULTY SHARON HAGGINS DUNN, PROFESSOR AND LOW RESIDENCY MFA PROGRAM COORDINATOR
EACH SUMMER, THE LOW-RESIDENCY MFA PROGRAM WELCOMES A SERIES OF
Sharon Haggins Dunn is a Boston artist whose work reflects concerns with past, present, and future African-American generations. She speaks about issues of continuity, silenced voices, and an absent history. Dunn has researched and documented transcultural artistic traditions in Cuba, Nicaragua, the United Kingdom, Finland, Nigeria, and Ghana. She has held teaching positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, Wheelock College, and Massachusetts Bay Community College, and has been a professor at MassArt since 1978.
VISITS WITH STUDENTS, AND PARTICIPATE IN GROUP CRITIQUES. THESE
VISITING ARTISTS AND CRITICS, WHO PRESENT LECTURES, CONDUCT STUDIO GUESTS, INCLUDING MASSART FACULTY FROM OUR FULL-RESIDENCY MFA PROGRAMS AS WELL AS ARTISTS, SCHOLARS, AND CURATORS FROM THE BOSTON AREA AND BEYOND, PROVIDE INSIGHT INTO TRANSDISCIPLINARY MEDIA AND SHARE DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES IN ARTMAKING. Sharon Dunn
YO AHN HAN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR YoAhn Han is a visual artist from the Republic of Korea. His work is a visual dialogue between suppression and desire, a duality which speaks to both his experience of cerebral arteriovenous malformation and to his bifurcated cultural identity. His work has been shown internationally in the United States, South Korea, and the Netherlands. Recent solo shows include “My Princess, Bari” at ART MORA Gallery in New York and “Botanical Rhapsody” at Chase Young Gallery in Boston.
YoAhn Han
NANCE DAVIES, VISITING PROFESSOR Nance Davies is a Boston-based interdisciplinary artist and curator whose work explores the impact of mass-mediated culture and consumerism on inter-relationships and interdependence of all life forms. Her recent work explores the poetics of the ‘everyday’ gesture and the transformative role of empathy. Davies is the recipient of the Coleman Award (Boston University) and the Zorach Fellowship (Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture). Her work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally.
Nance Davies
RECENT VISITING ARTISTS
RECENT VISITING MASSART FACULTY
Colleen Asper
Beth Balliro
Rashin Fahandej
James Cambronne
Karin Goodfellow
Juan Obando
Michelle Handelman
Jill Slosburg-Ackerman
David Hilliard
Jessica Tam
Tony Shwenson
Roger Tibbets
JENNIFER HALL, PROFESSOR EMERITA Jennifer Hall has been a pioneer in the new media community for over thirty years. An artist, philosopher, educator, curator, writer, and researcher, she has made significant contributions to the fields of interactive art, art education, and embodied philosophy. She has held teaching positions at The University of Vermont at Bennington, New Media University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among others. Hall has performed and exhibited her work nationally and internationally. 3
Jennifer Hall
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SUMMER RESIDENCIES During summer residencies, students choose elective courses that expand the scope of their studio practice and build new relationships with faculty and peers. Studio electives also provide access to our first-rate facilities, which include our printmaking studio, digital imaging labs, large-format printers, laser cutters, professional sound and lighting studios, black box installation spaces, and a recently renovated woodshop. In addition, all MFA students have the use of personal studio spaces with 24-hour access for the duration of each summer residency period.
ALL STUDENTS HAVE THE OPTION OF LIVING ON-CAMPUS DURING THE SUMMER IN OUR ARTISTS’ RESIDENCE, A STATE-OF-THE-ART LIVING AND WORKING ENVIRONMENT DESIGNED TO CREATE A CONVENIENT, SAFE AND COMFORTABLE SPACE FOR STUDENT ARTISTS TO LIVE AND LEARN.
Above: Robert Trumbour (MFA ‘18), Live performance of The Labor In Forgetting at the MassArt Design and Media Center, Summer 2018 MFA Thesis Exhibition
Top: MassArt Printmaking Studio, Image by Damian Hickey Left: Julia C. Luteran (MFA ‘18), I-Beam Bling at the MassArt Design and Media Center, Summer 2018 MFA Thesis Exhibition
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RECENT SUMMER ELECTIVE COURSES INSTALLATION: ACROSS PLATFORMS This course provides a comprehensive view of the intricacies and challenges of creating art installations from conception to realization. Through a combination of written and oral communication, material documentation, visual explorations, site research, visits with curators, and art-making, students gain an understanding of site-specific/site-related installation, intervention, public, and land art. SOUND STUDIO This class explores the Phenomena of Sound and how to shape it within an art context. Topics include: the science and behavior of sound waves; listening skills; microphone technique; digital recording, editing, and mixing; audio processing; editing audio for video; and general MIDI. PRINTMAKING SEMINAR: HYBRIDS This course explores the role of printmaking within the discourse of contemporary art and culture. It seeks to develop and extend the language of print through innovative uses of traditional methods. Focus is placed on hybrid
DISTANCE LEARNING AND MENTORSHIP
print processes, and students explore printing methodologies, layering strategies, and the permutations between analog and digital imagery.
Every semester, students work with a studio mentor who offers
PAPER AND OBJECTS Paper as a medium serves as the focus of this course. Assorted handmade paper, artists’ books, and paper objects are studied and created. Students gain an understanding of the diverse historical and cultural impact of paper objects and books. Traditional and contemporary artists are studied, including several from MassArt’s rare and extensive collection.
professors from other institutions, or practicing artists, curators, or
INTERCULTURAL LAB What is intercultural understanding and why should it matter to visual artists? This graduate elective explores complex histories and delves into the lived implications of this question within the context of art thinking, writing, production, viewing, and critique. Intercultural understanding (IU) is both the destination and the journey of this class.
individualized guidance and critique. Mentors are carefully selected based on each student’s particular practice, and with an eye on expanding each student’s network of future colleagues. Mentors can be MassArt faculty, scholars from a student’s local community. Students return to campus for a long weekend in January, to reconnect with their cohort and attend intensive reviews of their work with peers, faculty, and visiting critics. Over their two academic years in the program, students build a network of mentors and colleagues, expanding their community of artists and scholars.
RECENT STUDIO MENTORS
Atteqa Ali Professor, Zayed University, Dubai Bashezo Boyd Performance/Installation Artist and MassArt Faculty Nettrice Gaskins, Ph.D Digital Artist, Author, and Cultural Critic Matthew Hincman Sculptor, Public Artist, and MassArt 3D Fine Arts Department Chair Neil Leonard Professor, Berklee College of Music Denise Markonish Senior Curator, MASS MoCA Elizabeth Mooney Painter and Faculty, Wellesley College Jessica Sack Curator, Yale University Art Gallery Amber Vistein Composer and Sound Artist Debra Weisberg Public Artist and Faculty, Boston College
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STUDENT AND ALUMNI OPPORTUNITIES Several post-graduate residency opportunities are offered each year to recent alumni, including international teaching residencies in Beijing, China, and Bangalore, India. The Graduate Programs also coordinate and provide funding for local and regional artist residencies for alumni at MASS MoCA, the Longy School of Music of Bard College, and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Leslie Fandrich, MFA ‘18 Since graduating from MassArt’s Low Residency MFA program in 2018, Hudson Valley based artist Leslie Fandrich has continued to make and exhibit work that builds upon her thesis project My Body Is Your Home, exploring the boundaries of the female body and how it relates to others and to domestic spaces. In July of 2019, her installation Inflatable Room (Womb) was selected for exhibition in Dusklit, an outdoor, interactive art festival.
Below: Leslie Fandrich (MFA ’18), Inflatable Room (Womb), installed at Dusklit Outdoor Interactive Art Festival, The Seligmann Center, Sugarloaf, NY, 2019
Leslie Fandrich
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Ruth Kathryn Henry, MFA ‘19
Ruth Kathryn Henry
Fandrich says: “Throughout my time in the low residency program, the MassArt faculty I worked with changed the way I think about and understand art, and introduced me to a depth of critical thinking. Sharon Dunn in particular was a consistent and passionate voice; she has the ability to “be in” the work with each student like no one I have ever met. The varied pace of intensive summer residencies and the academic year when we work with a mentor creates a kind of push and pull that was very helpful for my process. In just over two years I gained confidence, insight and knowledge that might have otherwise taken me a lifetime to discover.” 9
Top: Ruth Kathryn Henry (MFA ’19), installation view of We Keep Crossing, at MassArt’s Design and Media Center, Summer 2019
Leslie Fandrich My Body Is Your Home, MFA thesis installation view, MassArt Design and Media Center, 2018
Ruth Kathryn Henry earned her BA from Hampshire College and was a 2003 Fulbright Scholar in Colombia, where she studied Hip Hop as a means of expression. She came to the MassArt MFA program as a mixed media artist, art educator, poet, and emcee, interested in expanding her practice to include new media and skills, particularly for public art installation. Working in summer elective courses and with MFA faculty mentors, Henry explored printmaking, laser cutting techniques, welding, and projection mapping. While still pursuing her degree, she put her new skill set to work on projects like her Rise To Change mixed media mural, installed at Boston’s Villa Victoria housing project in 2017. Her MFA thesis, We Keep Crossing, an interactive multimedia installation exploring the power of our collective stories to crumble walls and rise together above the rubble, was recently reinstalled at the Watertown Middle School courtyard. In public installations, music, and murals, Henry interweaves the stories and art of surrounding communities. Her deep belief in art’s power to unite people across painful divides is born of lived experiences as a socially engaged artist both locally and globally. Henry was recently awarded a Mass Partners of the Americas grant to continue her community-based artwork. 10
ABOUT MASSART Founded in 1873, MassArt has a unique legacy of leadership as the first freestanding, public college of art and design in the country and the nation’s first art school to grant a degree. MassArt’s mission is both lofty and grounded: to prepare students from diverse backgrounds to positively impact every society they join, and to become leaders in the creative economy as artists, designers, and educators. Since its founding, MassArt has consistently advocated for access to and equity in art, design, and education. Our alumni have long been agents of change in Boston and beyond, driven by independence, entrepreneurship, and passion.
FALL 2020 PRIORITY APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 6, 2020
CONTACT US Graduate Admissions: gradadmissions@massart.edu Facebook.com/MassArtBoston
Associate Director of Graduate Admissions: Stacy Petersen Domurat 617.879.7238
@MassArtBoston @MassArt