Art & Design Graduate Programs in Chicago

Faun Manne, Floral Duo, 2020

Low-Residency MFA
The Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts Program is designed for the 21st-century artist whose work and life demands both a rigorous engagement with an artistic community as well as flexibility, fluidity, and a self-directed approach.
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Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts Program
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Photo courtesy of Artforum.

Hamza Walker

Even though SAIC is in the middle of the US, the School’s community still makes a major impact across the country and throughout the world. Take, for example, faculty member Hamza Walker, executive director of LAXART. “I am honored to be at the helm of one of L.A.’s premiere nonprofit spaces, to build on its legacy of supporting Los Angeles’s extraordinarily dynamic arts community, and to confront the challenges unique to alternative spaces,” Walker told Artforum.

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MA in Arts Administration and Policy
Through an integrated approach to curriculum, practice and research, the Master of Arts in Arts Administration and Policy (MAAAP) program emphasizes collaboration, teamwork, and creative leadership. We are not a traditional arts administration program. As an academic program and a hub of creative activity, our approach views arts administration as a creative practice.
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Arts Administration and Policy
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Laura-Caroline de Lara

As the director of the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, Laura-Caroline de Lara (Dual MA 2012) brings the words and work of marginalized artists to the forefront.

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MA in Art Education
The Master of Arts in Art Education (MAAE) program prepares artists, educators, designers, curators, teachers, organizers, activists, and other professionals seeking to be creative agents of change within a wide variety of cultural and educational contexts. The MAAE program focuses include social justice pedagogical practices; socially engaged art; collaborative practices, curriculum and project design for school, museum, and community settings; creative youth development; museum education; and design and environmental activism.
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Art Education
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Emily Calderon

Emily Calderon teaches art at Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy. When the pandemic hit, she had to reimagine every lesson plan. “If anything, I’ve learned what really matters," she said. "And some days, I spend 30 minutes just listening to the kids. Life is happening outside of the classroom."

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Susannah Ward, "25: An Abstracted Retrospection," 2020

MA in Art Therapy and Counseling
The Master of Arts in Art Therapy and Counseling program cultivates influential, compassionate leaders who are critically engaged with the social and cultural contexts surrounding artmaking and healing.
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Art Therapy and Counseling
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Noel King

There was a time in Noel King’s (MA 2015) life when she thought she might be an art historian, photographer, or painter, disciplines she studied in high school. Then she pivoted in college and decided to major in psychology—which she loved—but something was still missing. Now, as a Deaf art therapist, King helps her patients explore their identity through creativity.

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MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History
The Master of Arts in Modern and Contemporary Art History is a two-year, 36-credit masters program specializing in modern and contemporary art and design in international contexts. Two years of intensive study culminate in an original contribution to scholarship in the form of a master's thesis.
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Art History, Theory, & Criticism
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Photo by Andrei Pop

Mechtild Widrich

If you were to stroll through the parks that flank the perimeter of the Art Institute of Chicago, you’d see dozens of public artworks and monuments. Professor Mechtild Widrich notices and cares about all of them—and she thinks you should, too. Her book, Monumental Cares: Sites of History and Contemporary Art, follows case studies of monuments all over the globe, and implores readers to see and understand their significance.

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MA in Teaching
The Master of Arts in Teaching program educates graduate students to become teachers of art, design, and visual culture while strengthening their own artmaking practices. The SAIC Art Education community supports students in becoming engaged and reflective teachers/artists whose pedagogical work fosters the emergence of more just and joyous individuals and societies. The program fulfills requirements to become a licensed PK-12 visual arts teacher in Illinois, and the coursework contributes to (and may meet) the teacher licensure requirements for other states and countries.
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Art Education
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Featured Alum

Emily Calderon

Emily Calderon teaches art at Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy. When the pandemic hit, she had to reimagine every lesson plan. “If anything, I’ve learned what really matters," she said. "And some days, I spend 30 minutes just listening to the kids. Life is happening outside of the classroom."

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An image from the BAVCS Symposium in 2019.

MA in Visual & Critical Studies
The Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies program integrates scholarly, studio, and hybrid research practices. It is designed for students who wish to pursue a scholarly and creative investigation of practices of looking and the production, circulation, and impact of visual images.
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Visual and Critical Studies
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Romi Crawford

Romi Crawford's research and courses explore areas of race and ethnicity as they relate to American visual culture (including art, film, and photography). She is co-author of The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago and was previously the curator and director of the Education Department at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

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Ashley Boduch, "Architectural Model," 2021

Master of Architecture
Students in the Master of Architecture program learn the history, theory, and technique of architectural design, developing the skills and experience necessary for professional practice and the critical thinking necessary to develop new ideas and drive invention and expand the discipline of architecture.
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Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects
Historic Preservation
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Featured Alum

Photo courtesy of Baldenebro.

Tizziana Baldenebro

Tizziana Baldenebro (MArch 2018) has built a newsmaking curatorial career, which is firmly grounded in social and environmental justice. In 2023, she is helming the United States Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale Architettura. The theme: Everlasting Plastics.

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Joshua Stein, DISCARD ARCHIVE, 2020

Master of Architecture track in Interior Architecture
Students in the Master of Architecture program with a track in Interior Architecture gain all the expertise necessary for the practice of architecture while developing the sensibilities specific to the growing field of interior architecture.
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Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects
Historic Preservation
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Photo courtesy of Baldenebro.

Tizziana Baldenebro

Tizziana Baldenebro (MArch 2018) has built a newsmaking curatorial career, which is firmly grounded in social and environmental justice. In 2023, she is helming the United States Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale Architettura. The theme: Everlasting Plastics.

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Artwork by Ting-Yu Tseng

Master of Design in Designed Objects
The Master of Design in Designed Objects is a professional degree program with a structured curriculum that offers students the critical skills to imagine and create meaningful objects, systems, and experiences while challenging the boundaries of the field of design itself.
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Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects
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Alum Norman Teague in his Chicago studio. Credit: Vasia Rigou (MFA 2015). Photo courtesy of IIDA.

Norman Teague

Norman Teague (MDes 2016) is a Chicago-based designer and educator who focuses on projects and pedagogy that address the complexity of urbanism and the history of communities. He served as lead craftsman and co-founder of the Design Apprenticeship Program at the University of Chicago's Arts Incubator.

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An image from Echo: A Site-specific Installation and Architecture Exhibition.

MFA | Architecture
The Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Architecture program supports advanced work in architecture and its related fields that calls upon a broad range of art and design disciplines to challenge how architecture is defined and practiced.
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Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects
Historic Preservation
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Featured Alum

Photo courtesy of Baldenebro.

Tizziana Baldenebro

Tizziana Baldenebro (MArch 2018) has built a newsmaking curatorial career, which is firmly grounded in social and environmental justice. In 2023, she is helming the United States Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale Architettura. The theme: Everlasting Plastics.

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Jane Foley, Deep Sound, 2021

MFA | Art & Technology / Sound Practices
Art & Technology / Sound Practices (AT/SP) is a place to explore, critique, and imagine the potentials of artistic production with technology, sound, or their unlimited hybrid forms through focused study and interdisciplinary exploration. Students build their own individual course of study guided by expert faculty. They can take advantage of a fully interdisciplinary pedagogy through courses, advisers, and seminars, or they can take a focused approach to specific media, disciplines, or topics in the AT/SP ecosystem.
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Art & Technology / Sound Practices
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Photo courtesy of Lou Mallozzi

Lou Mallozzi

Lou Mallozzi is an artist working with a variety of strategies including sound, installation, performance, public intervention, drawing, and improvised music. He has performed and exhibited in the U.S. and Europe, including projects at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Arts Club in Chicago, and the Italian Cultural Institute and Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He is co-founder and director emeritus of Experimental Sound Studio.

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MFA | Ceramics
Offering one of the few ceramics graduate programs that focuses on experimental, contemporary ceramics, both traditional and innovative processes and technologies are embraced. Students in the Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Ceramics program are encouraged to move fluidity across media, materials and methods to create bold work that subverts the ordinary.
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Ceramics
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Photo courtesy of Mie Kongo

Mie Kongo

Mie Kongo (BFA 2006) is an artist, a sculptor, and a professor, but above all, she is an observer. Fueled by a sense of curiosity and discovery, Kongo’s ceramics practice is rooted in exploring the nuance and subtleties of everyday life.

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A display from The Sweetest 16, an exhibition at the John M. Flaxman Library celebrating Xerox Candy Bar's sixteenth anniversary.

MFA | Comics
SAIC's new Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Comics program offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and innovative pathway for aspiring comic artists. Recognizing that developing narrative comics is a multi-faceted art form, the curriculum provides students with the opportunity to work across various disciplines, including painting, drawing, writing, reading, and narrative expression. Foundational Comics Seminars, combined with student-selected studio electives and faculty advisors, allow students to explore and experiment while developing their individual narrative voices and visual languages.
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Comics
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Beth Hetland, Professor, Adjunct

Beth Hetland is the author of the graphic novel 'Tender,' published by Fantagraphics in 2024. She is the co-author of 'Half-Asleep' (Green Key Studios) and has produced a number of other zines and comics throughout her career. Hetland’s work has appeared in 'Publisher's Weekly,' 'Diabolique Magazine,' 'Voyage Chicago,' and 'High-Low Comics,' among others, and she is the recipient of multiple awards for both teaching and art, including a DCASE Grant from the City of Chicago and a Best in Show DiNKy Award from the Denver Indie Comics Expo.

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Yaazd Contractor, RGBY, 2019

MFA | Design for Emerging Technologies
The Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Design for Emerging Technologies program offers students resources in physical interface and interaction design, information architecture, physical computing, software-based optimization and analysis, and design for embedded control and robotic activation.
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Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects
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Featured Alum

Photo courtesy of Civitella Ranieri.

Wafaa Bilal

To Wafaa Bilal (MFA 2003), how technology can illuminate human agency—or a lack thereof—is not new, or even controversial. His work uses video games, camera footage, and interactivity as conduits to illuminate how much power the West has, comparatively, if only they would stop and think about it. Crucial to his work is not only the scenarios it introduces; Bilal is also deeply concerned with how viewers respond to it.

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An image from Whatnot Studio in-progress in 2019.

MFA | Designed Objects
The Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Designed Objects program is suited to design practitioners looking to advance, define, and reinvent their practice.
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Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects
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Featured Alum

Alum Norman Teague in his Chicago studio. Credit: Vasia Rigou (MFA 2015). Photo courtesy of IIDA.

Norman Teague

Norman Teague (MDes 2016) is a Chicago-based designer and educator who focuses on projects and pedagogy that address the complexity of urbanism and the history of communities. He served as lead craftsman and co-founder of the Design Apprenticeship Program at the University of Chicago's Arts Incubator.

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SAIC Fashion Show 2017

MFA | Fashion, Body and Garment
SAIC's groundbreaking Master of Fine Arts in Fashion, Body and Garment moves beyond the merging of fine art with fashion design to explore the body in motion, on show, in suspension, in conversation, and immersed in the world.
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Fashion Design
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Photo by Jim Prinz.

Nick Cave

Nick Cave is an artist, educator, and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. Many might be surprised that an artist of Cave’s stature—his work has been celebrated and exhibited all over the world—is still teaching, but community has always been essential to his practice.

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Jamie Lynn Lewin, In An Instant, 2022, yarn on plastic canvas.

MFA | Fiber & Material Studies
The Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Fiber & Material Studies program fosters experimentation across disciplines. Students explore cloth, print, and constructed textiles, as well as new media technologies, computer-assisted tools, sculpture, installation, and performance to make complex, cross-disciplinary work.
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Fiber & Material Studies
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Featured Alum

Bryana Bibbs

Bryana Bibbs is the founder of The We Were Never Alone Project, a series of weaving workshops for survivors of domestic violence. During the workshop, Bibbs teaches participants a basic plain weave and gives them space to share their stories. She sees these workshops as part of a tradition of community spaces that have been centered around knitting.

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An image from An Evening with Rachel Rossin in 2019.

MFA | Film, Video, New Media, & Animation
Expanding the possibilities of moving-image is at the heart of our Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Film, Video, New Media, & Animation program. Students push boundaries while engaging in formal experimentation, technical innovation, and critical investigation in all forms of media-based work.
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Film, Video, New Media, & Animation
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Featured Alum

Photo courtesy of Prestige.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (MFA 1998, HON 2011) is a filmmaker who most recently won the Prix du Jury award for his film Memoria (2021) at the Cannes Film Festival. In previous years, Weerasethakul won the Prix du Jury for his film Tropical Malady (2004), the Prix Un Certain Regard for Blissfully Yours (2002), and the Palme d’Or for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010).

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Olivia Minshall, "Split," 2022

MFA | Painting & Drawing
Widely considered one of the most important studio programs in the country, the Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Painting & Drawing program promotes the development of new approaches that are redefining contemporary painting. Through studio production, critical discussion, and experimentation, students acquire the conceptual, material, and methodological tools to build a sustainable practice.
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Painting & Drawing
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Featured Alum

Photo by Greg Reigh.

Angel Otero

“Painter” is the description that Angel Otero (BFA 2007, MFA 2009) identifies with most, but using that title has the unintended effect of singling him out. The artist’s compositions made of dried oil paint smash together colors, textures, and focal points—almost daring viewers to discern a hierarchy.

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