summer undergraduate residency program

Summer 2012 dates: June 18-August 10

Application deadline: April 1

SFAI’s Summer Undergraduate Residency Program offers a rare opportunity for a graduate-quality experience in preparation for advanced study in the fine arts. Unique for its rigorous critique, individualized support, and engagement with internationally recognized artists, this eight-week intensive program is specifically designed for undergraduate students or recent baccalaureate graduates wanting to refine and complete a portfolio. 

Students who pursue this residency must have significant studio experience and demonstrate a readiness for graduate-level work through their statement of intent, project proposal, and artwork. 

Residency Includes:

• 3 units of advanced undergraduate college credit
• Individual studio space at SFAI’s historic 800 Chestnut Street campus
• Professional and technical development through the Residency Seminar
• Access to SFAI facilities and technical support services, including painting, printmaking, and sculpture studios; darkrooms; digital imaging and film processing equipment; and editing suites
• Attendance at the Graduate Lecture Series
• Critiques with visiting artists
• Excursions to San Francisco museums, galleries, and alternative art spaces
• Group exhibition at SFAI’s Diego Rivera Gallery
• Access to SFAI’s Summer Institute public programs
• Option of enrolling in additional undergraduate courses and tutorials (additional tuition cost)
• Housing available in SFAI’s residence hall (additional fee) 

How to Apply

Applicants must submit: 

• Residency Application Form
• A statement of intent / project proposal
• Ten examples of work (digital images on a CD)
• A letter of support from a faculty member at the applicant’s home institution

Application materials should be mailed to:

Summer Undergraduate Residency Program
San Francisco Art Institute, Academic Affairs
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133

Program Cost

Tuition: $4,698
Housing (optional): $275 - $325 per week depending on room type and availability

2012 Seminar Leaders

Larry Thomas is an accomplished painter and printmaker. He worked for many years at SFAI as chair of the Printmaking Department, Dean of Academic Affairs, and Interim President. His work is in the collections of artist’s books at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Sherry Knutson is the Area Manager of Painting, Printmaking, and Sculpture at SFAI.

2012 Visiting Artists and Lecturers

Rhea Anastas is an art historian and Interim Director of the M.A program in Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere at the Roski School of Fine Arts at USC. She co-founded Orchard, a cooperatively organized gallery on New York’s Lower East Side, and has edited three books: Dan Graham: Works 1965-2000 (2001), Witness to Her Art (2006), and Allan McCollum (2012).

Bill Berkson is a poet, art critic, and Professor Emeritus at SFAI. A corresponding editor for Art in America, he has also contributed reviews and essays to Aperture, Artforum, and Modern Painters. A new collection of his art writings, For the Ordinary Artist (BlazeVOX), was published in 2011.

Allan deSouza is Chair of the New Genres Department at SFAI. His photographic, installation, and performance works investigate themes of landscape, modernity, and colonialism. He has had recent solo exhibitions at the Fowler Museum, Los Angeles; the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco.

Kota Ezawa’s projects encompass digital animations, slide projections, lightboxes, paper cutouts, intaglio etchings, ink drawings, and wood sculptures. His work has been shown at the MoMA, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art; SFMOMA; Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Art Institute of Chicago; and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; as well as the 5th Seoul International Biennale of Media Art and the 2004 Shanghai Biennale. Ezawa lives in San Francisco and Berlin.

Jeannene Przyblyski is an artist and historian whose work includes scholarly publications on art, urbanism, photography, and new media, as well as conceptual and media-based site-specific artworks exploring history, ecology, and urban form. She is Dean of Academic Affairs at SFAI and Executive Director of the San Francisco Bureau of Urban Secrets.

Susan Silton works across diverse media including photography/video, installation, performance, text, audio, lithography, and Internet technologies, and within diverse contexts such as public sites, social network platforms, and traditional galleries. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at SFMOMA and LACMA.

Hans Winkler has realized actions and interventions in public space since 1984. In 2008 he curated the exhibition Looking for Mushrooms, about the art movement in San Francisco from 1955 – 1968, at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany.

Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist who combines a wide range of vocal techniques with electronic processing, samples, gesture-activated MIDI controllers, and video. Her work has been presented at Bang on a Can in New York and the Venice Biennale, and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Ars Electronica honorable mention.