MFA: Environmental Art & Social Practice

Welcome

This unique, two-year, residential program seeks prospective applicants who want to develop their artwork in relation to social and environmental justice questions, contexts and communities. Headed by internationally-recognized artists and including affiliate faculty from across campus, the program integrates the resources of a great public university with the Art Department’s mission of educating and training students in cross-disciplinary, multimedia art practices.

Students translate concerns for environmental and social justice into contemporary art practices through professional training combining project-based research, seminars, faculty mentorship, electives, visiting artists, and peer critiques. Working individually and collaboratively, in the studio and in the field, students will experiment with different approaches to build their practices conceptually and practically, while critically and creatively exploring art’s role as a catalyst for radical change.

About our MFA Program

The EASP MFA at UC Santa Cruz offers:

The intellectual and interdisciplinary resources of a research university renowned for its in-depth engagements with ecology and social justice
Close association with the diverse communities and ecologies of northern and central California
A committed art faculty recognized for our engagements with social practice and environmental art
A curriculum that provides an inclusive frame to foster critical learning and for practicing art in direct relation to issues, places, and communities
Facilities that support traditional and new technologies and media
Dedicated MFA studio space
Faculty-led research centers which act as focal points for topic-based research as well as external funding
The University of California Library system connecting users with up-to-date global research resources
Full funding support through Teaching Assistantships

With these important pieces in place, we invite students to join us in the ongoing creation of this program, one in which socio-bio-diversity is acknowledged, respected, and celebrated, and through which we can cultivate our ability to respond to urgent contemporary issues connected to the complex relations between art and life on earth. The contemporary urgencies of systemic social inequality and rapid environmental change add momentum to the implementation of this program.

We welcome practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds and training to study, imagine and create together new possibilities for what art can do and become.

If you think you would like to join us, or if you want more information, contact the Director of Graduate Studies at: artmfa@ucsc.edu

From the EASP Faculty

Letter From the EASP Faculty:

Art, the systems and institutions that surround and support art, and the people who make art are constantly evolving in relation to worlds in flux. In unprecedented times of climate crisis and of raised consciousness about extreme racial and other social inequalities, the boundary-crossing, associative and connective possibilities of creative practice can reach across perceived divisions and create new forms and alternate understandings. Our place-based, topically-focused MFA program is all about making connections:

between environmental & social justice;
human & non-human worlds;
indigenous practices & visionary futurisms;
traditional techniques & new technologies;
solo & collaborative practices;
feeling & thinking;
and art & life.

The energy in these conjunctions drives our program, which focuses on making and locating art in the world, in relation to pasts and to futures, with diverse communities, and grounded in individual and collective commitments, inventions, and aesthetic visions. Our name highlights the links between environmental and social because we understand that these central issues of our time are not separate concerns of different groups based on privilege or identity, but inextricably connected, and deeply relevant for inspired art practice.

Environmental art is based in ecological principles of co-existence among human and non-human worlds, including a respect for difference, and listening; social practice recognizes that the systems and structures of social relations are a “material” that can be examined, critiqued, and reconceived through art. These art practices share ethical principles and methods, a fundamental concern with justice, and commitments to making change.

We invite prospective students who want to deepen and develop their work through rigorous and radical graduate study to join us. Our MFA program is an opportunity to study and learn together. We offer a structured curriculum but no prescriptions or formulae; instead, an invitation to help co-invent this evolving field. Our faculty have deep and varied experience in social practice and environmental art, as well as media specialities in painting, photography, sculpture, new media, performance, and printmaking. Students will have access to resources and to faculty throughout the university, which is renowned for its innovative contributions to interdisciplinary research. The UC Santa Cruz campus is positioned in an exquisitely beautiful and ecologically diverse location between the Pacific ocean and the redwood forests, and in the midst of some of the most intense and pressing environmental, economic and social contradictions that structure contemporary life. There is a lot of work to do. We expect the world of our students and will give you our full attention as teachers, as artists, as scholars, and as co-conspirators in world-building.

In solidarity,

EASP Faculty

Still have questions?

We’ve got answers to the most common questions for interested students.
See our FAQ below

FAQs

EASP Grad Handbook

Environmental Art and Social Practice (EASP) Graduate Student Handbook. See the PDF below

Handbook

Contact Information

Use the email below to contact us:
Weslynn Cedeño, Art Department MFA Graduate Advisor
Karolina Karlic, MFA Graduate Director

Email: artmfa@ucsc.edu

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