Undergraduate Admissions Events
Meet with us, learn more about SAIC and our curriculum, and get feedback on your work.
Graduate Admissions Events
Learn how to prepare a competitive application, meet with faculty and staff, and explore our programs and facilities.
Our Fall Non-Credit Course Schedule is Live!
Register now for fall art and design courses for middle schoolers, high schoolers, and adults.
Curious. Bold. Ambitious.
You're ready to take risks and challenge others. You're open to change — and want to change things. This is your playground.
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Meet Aidan Anne Frierson, Artist and Storyteller
Recent graduate Aidan Anne Frierson (MFA 2025) is many things: a storyteller, educator, artist, and daughter of Chicago. Her work threads together personal history and collective memory, grounded in the textures of Black life and legacy.
MEET AIDAN ANNE FRIERSON, ARTIST AND STORYTELLER
Recent graduate Aidan Anne Frierson (MFA 2025) is many things: a storyteller, educator, artist, and daughter of Chicago. Her work threads together personal history and collective memory, grounded in the textures of Black life and legacy.
A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO PAPERMAKING
For Lyte as a Rock, Frierson embedded bamboo earrings bought from a South Side beauty store into handmade paper. Denim jeans—including pairs belonging to her parents—were broken down, pulped, and colored with natural pigment.
COTTON, MEMORY, AND RECLAMATION
Frierson’s relationship with cotton and place—what she calls “a radical act of reclamation”—is as intellectual as it is intimate. “This material doesn’t have to feel like a trap,” she said. “We interact with it every day, in the same ways that I feel like I interact with my ancestors every day. It feels like a point of connection and understanding.”
What Is This?
Why SAIC?
Three of our students share what brought them to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Tess Shoshana
"The freedom to choose what you learn and how you learn."
Leo Dai
"I wouldn’t be where I’m at right now without Chicago."
Antane Phillips
"The museum, I have now seen it as my second classroom."
Upcoming Events
August 25 - December 06
SAIC Galleries Street Level, SAIC Galleries Lower Level 2
July 20 - October 01
September 18
MacLean Ballroom 112 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60603
