Master of Fine Arts
Low-Residency MFA saic.edu/lowres The Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts (Low-Res MFA) program is a transdisciplinary course of study designed for 21st-century artists, writers, and educators looking for rigorous engagement, artistic community, and the flexibility of a self-directed schedule. Bringing together artists across all areas of practice, the Low-Res MFA emphasizes dialogue in community.
Summer sessions Students attend three summer sessions structured around weekly seminars and studio visits with faculty and visiting artists, a wide range of readings on artmaking, distribution, and interpretation methods, and a series of specialized professional practice courses. Successive summers introduce students to resources necessary for off-campus semesters, studios and galleries in Chicago, and the development of networks and resources needed for a successful transition into professional practice.
Rigorous yet flexible Throughout the seven-semester MFA program, a rotating group of core SAIC faculty provides both on-campus and online instruction. Students attend three consecutive six-week summer sessions in person in Chicago, which include weekly seminars, colloquia, and studio visits with faculty and visiting artists. During the fall and spring semesters between these summer residencies, students work remotely from their home studios, participating in asynchronous online courses and oneon-one advising. The degree culminates in a written thesis and a public exhibition.
Conceptually-driven As a program that brings together artists of all disciplines, the Low-Res MFA curriculum is focused through the lens of “poetics,” from the Greek poiema, meaning “a made thing.” What unites us in the Low-Res MFA is that we are all exploring what it means to make things: conceptually, materially, and relationally. Poetics is a transdisciplinary framework that brings us together around, and provides shared language for, this inquiry.
For more information on the program and application requirements, please visit:
saic.edu/lowres
Jennifer Lord, 2024