master of arts

SFAI’s two-year Master of Arts (MA) degree programs provide a generative context for advanced scholarly inquiry into the major ideas, institutions, and discourses of contemporary art, and the socio-cultural and political conditions of its production.

Working with artists, historians, theorists, curators, practitioners, and thinkers from diverse disciplines, MA students participate in seminars, research and writing projects, colloquia, internships, and travel opportunities. Notable areas of study include: the influence of media and notions of reproducibility; the role of the artist as social researcher, interventionist, or activist; the influence of globalization; postcolonial theory; psychoanalysis; discourses of multiculturalism; the legacy and currency of feminism; and the lineage of modernism and postmodernism.

MA students interact and collaborate with artists from the MFA program, creating a compelling interdisciplinary context that turns research and inquiry into practice. They also engage with local and international artists and scholars through the Graduate Lecture Series and the Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series; curate exhibitions at SFAI’s Swell Gallery and gain practical experience in the arts and broaden the scope of their research through professional collaborations or internships with Bay Area arts institutions.

The culmination of the MA degree is the completion and public defense of a thesis dissertation, as well as the completion of the MA Collaborative Project—an interdisciplinary project that coalesces the major concerns of the students in the program into a multi-faceted public work.

2012 MFA/MA Art and Ideas

This book showcases SFAI's graduate programs and the diverse, ambitious work by the next generation of artists from this celebrated school.