Visitor walking through the undergraduate exhibition at SAIC Galleries

Undergraduate Exhibition at SAIC Galleries. Photo: Tony Favarula

Undergraduate Studies

Explore Undergraduate Programs

Design Your Curriculum

SAIC offers a dynamic, interdisciplinary curriculum that gives you the freedom to explore. Learn more about each of our degrees and areas of study by clicking on the titles below.

  • A person wearing white gloves handling images of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

    BA in Art History

    The Bachelor of Arts in Art History draws on the depth and diversity of offerings in the scholarly study of art practices that only a major art school connected with a world-class museum can offer. The international networks for contemporary art are an important part of the course offerings, and we offer a wide range of classes in Asian, African, Latin American, European, and North American Art. Substantial coursework in Art History, supported by additional coursework in Liberal Arts and in studio departments define the course of study. 

    Academic department:

    Art History, Theory, and Criticism

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    Featured Faculty

    Mechtild Wildrich poses with her new book in front of Henry Moore's Nuclear Energy (installed 1967) at the University of Chicago Campus.
    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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  • Two people standing on a large stage with a projection behind them.

    BA in Visual and Critical Studies

    The Bachelor of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies degree program at SAIC allows you to pursue in-depth academic study in the creative environment of an art school. During your work, you will draw connections between the visual arts and history, philosophy, psychology, and the natural sciences. 

    The Department of Visual and Critical Studies is concerned with the study of visual media across many different disciplines, as well as the development of hybrid research practices, particularly the overlap between studio and scholarly production. Its programs are part of an evolving paradigm that addresses the complexity of visual and critical practices in the 21st century. 

    Academic department:

    Visual and Critical Studies

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    Featured Faculty

    An image of Romi Crawford.
    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 (Northwestern University Press, 2017). She was co-curator of the 2017 Open Engagement conference in Chicago and was previously the curator and director of the Education Department at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

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  • A group of students in a classroom.

    BFA with an Emphasis in Art Education

    The Bachelor of Fine Arts with an Emphasis in Art Education program educates students to become teachers of art, design, and visual culture while continuing to strengthen their own artmaking practices. SAIC'S Art Education community supports students in becoming engaged and reflective teacher artists whose pedagogical work fosters the emergence of more just and joyous individuals and societies. 

    Academic department:

    Art Education

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    Featured Alum

    An image of Calderon at work in her daughter’s nursery.
    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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  • Three small shelves with comics and stuffed animals.
    Caroline Buttala, Comics, 2017–2018, screenprint, comics, fibers

    BFA with an Emphasis in Writing

    The Bachelor of Fine Arts in Writing degree at SAIC emphasizes a process-based approach to creative writing—one in which students experience writing across genre and in interdisciplinary and hybrid modes. Fully integrated into SAIC’s studio departments, you will explore the relationship between language and visual art by connecting writing to comics, graphic novels, artist’s books, painting, performance, film, sound, and gallery installations.

    Academic department:

    Writing

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    Featured Alum

    An image of Gabriel Bump standing outside.
    Gabriel Bump in front of his childhood home in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. Photo by Jeremy Handrup (MFA 2018) with Folio Films. Image courtesy of Gabriel Bump
    Gabriel Bump

    Gabriel Bump's (BFA 2015) Everywhere You Don’t Belong explores tensions where race and class do and don’t intersect in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood—a fictional journey that earned him the 2020 Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and a selection as one of the 100 most notable books of 2020 by the New York Times.

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  • Four students writing on a piece of paper hanging on a wall.

    BFA in Studio

    The Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree provides you a broad education that balances thinking and making, academic rigor, and experimental play. The BFA curriculum integrates academic and studio education—the classroom and the studio inform and enhance each other.  

    See related departments:  

    Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects  
    Art and Technology Studies  
    Ceramics  
    Fashion Design  
    Fiber and Material Studies  
    Film, Video, New Media, and Animation  
    Painting and Drawing  
    Performance  
    Photography  
    Printmedia  
    Sculpture  
    Sound  
    Visual Communication Design (Graphic Design)

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    Featured Alum

    An image of Angel Otero sitting on a stool in front of a large abstract mural in his studio.
    Photo by Greg Reigh.
    Angel Otero

    Featured Alum: “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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  • A group of students writing on brown parchment paper that hangs on the wall.

    BFA in Studio | Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects pathways

    In Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects, our studios have no boundaries: we are creative across disciplines and engaged with our community at SAIC, our context in Chicago, and the world. Our dedicated faculty teach from diverse experience in practices that impact public life and drive public culture. We value the craft that brings ideas into the world, the research that informs criticality, and the compelling stories we tell to share our work.

    Academic department:

    Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects
    Historic Preservation

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    Alum Spotlight

    An image of Lid Madrid outside at a skate park.
    Lid Madrid (MFA 2018)
    Lid Madrid

    As a kid, alum Lid Madrid (BFA 2021) didn’t see anyone who looked like them skateboarding, so it remained a forbidden sport. When they got to SAIC to study architecture, Madrid decided they weren’t going to let skateboarding be prohibited from their life. They received an SAIC Idea Generation Grant for a public mobile DIY skate park, and OnWord Skate Collective was born.

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  • A student using a large switch board.

    BFA in Studio | Art & Technology / Sound Practices pathway

    Art & Technology / Sound Practices (AT/SP) is a place to explore artistic production with technology, sound, or their unlimited hybrid forms through focused study and interdisciplinary exploration. It integrates two visionary SAIC departments: the Department of Art & Technology Studies and the Sound Department, each with more than 50 years of radical artistic and pedagogic exploration.

    AT/SP offers a large, diverse, and ever-changing range of courses designed to provide students with an immersive, thorough, and critically engaged course of study from a global perspective. Its curriculum integrates skills-based learning with conceptual investigation and critical interrogation to prepare students to be creative and productive cultural citizens.

    Academic departments:

    Art & Technology / Sound Practices

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    Featured Work

    Projections against a building as part of Art on the Mart

    Image by October.tv, courtesy of ART on THE MART

    Analog Meets ART on the MART

    The Merchandise Mart, home of ART on THE MART, is a 2.5 acre digital installation site in downtown Chicago and is one of the largest in the world. In 2023, it features the work of SAIC students. Associate Professor Jan Tichy, who was one of ART on THE MART’s inaugural artists and now serves on its advisory board, helped launch this opportunity as a collaboration between the School’s Art and Technology / Sound Practices and Photography departments. Students in Tichy’s Digital Light Projections course paired with Lecturer Austen Brown’s Analog Synthesis students to create two-minute projections and sound works combined into a single artwork under the theme and title of Analog.

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  • Various distorted clay tubes placed on a purple display.
    Audrey Mullin, Familial Ties, 2019, ceramic and wood

    BFA in Studio | Ceramics pathway

    The Department of Ceramics is a model of interdisciplinary investigation where art, design, and craft are the fields of research and innovation. Drawing from a wealth of technical and cultural traditions as well as from high-tech industrial applications, you will engage in a study and practice of ceramics that is unique and urgently contemporary. The SAIC Ceramics department reflects and embraces these contradictions, offering courses exploring interdisciplinary topics in ceramics such as the intersections of and shared methods, materials, and critical discourse among Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects, Fiber and Material Studies, Sculpture and Performance.

    Academic department:

    Ceramics

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    Featured Faculty

    J. Howard Rosier_MG-01082019_SpringMagazine2019_Spreads_Page_12_Image_0002.jpg
    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 model wearing a white and tan outfit with detailed black stitching.
    An image from the Fashion Sophomore Looks Spring 2019

    BFA in Studio | Fashion Design pathway

    The Fashion Design department provides a unique, interdisciplinary experience that challenges students to bring an artistic and theoretical approach to the work. Students benefit from rigorous artistic and professionally oriented training. Our multidisciplinary approach to fashion is grounded in teaching technical, digital, artisanal and visceral ways of making, pairing artistic exploration with concept development and skill-building. You will emerge not only as a skilled designer, but with an awareness of the social, political, and technological forces shaping the 21st century.

    Academic department:

    Fashion Design

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    Featured Alum

    An image from Eliana Batsakis's portfolio featuring various sketches of models wearing colorful outfits.
    Eliana Batsiakis portfolio image. Image courtesy of the artist
    Eliana Batsakis

    Eliana Batsakis (BFA 2021) joined 11 other up-and-coming fashion designers in the latest season of Netflix’s Next In Fashion. Batsakis has been working as a teaching arts for Artworks Cincinnati. Her designs have previously been featured in LADYGUNN Magazine, VULKAN Magazine, and by the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Fashion Future Graduate Showcase.

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  • Multi-colored bows covering a large panel hanging on a pink wall using a beach umbrella.
    Kenna Stark, To Be Big, 2019, found holiday gift bows, beach umbrella, curtain panel

    BFA in Studio | Fiber and Material Studies pathway

    The Department of Fiber and Material Studies provides you with an interdisciplinary study of fiber, materials, and processes that incorporate different art-making approaches, including: textile construction, sculpture, installation, action, and craft. Research-based, concept-driven, and resolutely engaged with hands-on making, the program educates students to make ambitious, complex, and innovative contemporary art.

    Academic department:

    Fiber and Material Studies

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    Featured Alum

    An image of Bryana Bibbs standing in front of a colorful mural.
    Photo courtesy of Bryana Bibbs.
    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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  • A dark room with photographs along the walls, pink neon on the floor and a video playing.
    Xitlalli Sixta Tarin, La Isla de las Virgenes (The Island of Virgins), 2019, photography, video, neon

    BFA in Studio | Film, Video, New Media, and Animation pathway

    The Film, Video, New Media, and Animation department endorses and encourages experimentation with radical form and content. Our commitment to deep interdisciplinarity crosses a broad spectrum, including: cinema, animation, time-based installation, and new media. 

    Academic department:

    Film, Video, New Media, and Animation

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    Featured Alum

    An image of Apichatpong Weerasethakul standing in front of a projector.
    Photo courtesy of Prestige.
    Apichatpong Weerasethakul

    Alum 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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  • A painting of several whimsical figures.
    Jackie Patino, Busco u Busco y Busco Entrelazamiento Cuantico Por Luz Dentro, 2023

    BFA in Studio | Painting and Drawing pathway

    The Department of Painting and Drawing is a home to a diverse range of conceptual and material approaches. It is an open, pluralistic community with a primary emphasis on experimental consideration for painting in the 21st century.

    Academic department:

    Department of Painting and Drawing

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    Featured Alum

    An image of Angel Otero sitting on a stool in front of a large abstract mural in his studio.
    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.

    More
  • Pink fluorescent material with hints of green and blue.
    Kaitlyn Albrecht, In Search of Eden, 2018, inkjet print, digital projection, window film, camouflage netting, synthetic plants

    BFA in Studio | Performance pathway

    The Department of Performance was founded in an experimental spirit and is unique in the United States as one of the only contemporary live-performance art departments in an art school at the undergraduate and graduate level focused on performance practice and performance studies. The department continues to evolve in relation to new developments inside and outside the field and aims to be responsive to new ways of seeing and understanding the world in the 21st century, from both student and faculty perspectives.

    Academic department:

    Department of Performance

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    Featured Alum

    An image of Nyugen E. Smith against a bright blue background.
    Photo by Erica MacLean.
    Nyugen E. Smith

    To try to summarize Nyugen E. Smith’s (MFA 2016) oeuvre would be a fool’s errand. His work is too vast and too full; it spans every conceivable art form and is at once about the universal experience of being alive and the specific experience of being a first-generation American born to parents from Caribbean countries.

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  • Multiple photographs in various sizes hanging in on a white, gallery wall.
    Garrett J. Walinske, Our Castle (No Deawbridges), 2023

    BFA in Studio | Photography pathway

    The Department of Photography offers a multifaceted approach to the medium, including traditional forms of image making and conceptually oriented practices, making the SAIC Photography program uniquely diverse. As an undergraduate student, you will develop solid mastery over the technical and conceptual complexity that characterizes photography’s past and present while enhancing your ability to discuss your work and the work of others.

    Academic department:

    Photography

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    Featured Faculty

    An image of Dawit Petros standing in front of a large bookshelf.
    Photo courtesy of Dawit Petros
    Dawit Petros

    Dawit Petros is a visual artist, researcher, and educator. His work is informed by studies of global modernisms, theories of diaspora, and postcolonial studies. His works have been recognized with awards including a Terra Foundation Research Fellow, an Art Matters Fellowship, and artist residencies at The Studio Museum in Harlem, Addis Ababa Photo Fest, and an Independent Study Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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  • Three screen prints using purple, yellow and pink ink.
    Elise Seigenthaler, "Hippocampus, Gateau d’annversaire, and Mom’s Shoes," 2019, photography, screen print, thread, bed sheets / fabric

    BFA in Studio | Printmedia pathway

    The Department of Printmedia presents an interdisciplinary exploration of printmaking that prizes experimentation and emphasizes the research and discovery needed to bring ideas to fruition. Iteration and discovery, purposeful execution and serendipitous results are highly valued. The department’s approach to materials, technique, and process are contemporary. Printmedia is engaged with the multifaceted world of contemporary art, design and visual culture. Here, established ideas are welcomed and challenged; and new ideas are nurtured. 

    Academic department:

    Printmedia

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    Featured Faculty

    An image of Ayanah Moor wearing a black hat.
    Photo courtesy of Ayanah Moor
    Ayanah Moor

    Ayanah Moor is a visual artist and educator living and working in Chicago. She earned a master of fine arts from Tyler School of Art, Temple University and a bachelor of fine arts from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her artwork is held in public and private collections, including the Capital Group (Los Angeles); DePaul Art Museum (Chicago); Soho House (London); Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago); Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, University of Nevada (Las Vegas), and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center (Pittsburgh).

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  • Various paper mache figures laying and sitting ontop of foil.
    Moises Salazar, Cuerpos Desechables: Detencion, 2019, mixed media, ceramic, paper mache

    BFA in Studio | Sculpture pathway

    The Sculpture department offers one of the largest, most comprehensive, and diverse programs of its kind in the country. The department is situated at the defining edge of contemporary practice and discourse. We practice sculpture at its broadest level of meaning. Twentieth-century art practice opened up the spaces and materials of sculpture to those of the "real world," and this breadth of vision and experience is reflected in the development of the curriculum and resources, which encompass every material imaginable, leading to the expression of ideas in space. We are committed on levels both international and deeply local to the development of an economically and culturally diverse context for the study of sculpture and with increased attentiveness to environmental responsibility in art-making.

    Academic department:

    Sculpture

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    Featured Alum

    A black and white image of Richard Hunt.
    Photo courtesy of Richard Hunt.
    Richard Hunt

    Richard Hunt (BFA 1957, HON 1979) is considered one of Chicago’s most prolific and accomplished sculptors, and throughout his career (which spans nearly seven decades) he has made an enormous contribution to public art in the United States. In 1968, Hunt became the first Black visual artist to serve on the National Council of the Arts, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1971, when he was just 35 years old, the MoMA celebrated Hunt with his first retrospective.

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  • Two people looking at a purple, pink and blue booklet.

    BFA in Studio | Visual Communication Design pathway

    The Visual Communication Design department encourages students to actively engage their world and define their role as contributing designers by developing their critical and analytical skills, personal voice, and visual language. The department cultivates a sense of social responsibility and inquiry in student designers who will be working at the intersection of art, design, and mass culture.

    Our students are consistently represented in national design competitions and publications, while our alumni are designing, exhibiting, and teaching at leading studios and institutions across the country and beyond.

    Academic department:

    Visual Communication Design

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    Featured Alum

    A black and white image of McKenzie Thompson sitting on a bed.
    Photo courtesy of McKenzie Thompson
    McKenzie Thompson

    McKenzie Thompson (MFA 2014) is the founder of Outsider Supply, an e-commerce apparel brand informed by six years of living in Chicago. Combining streetwear with visual and textual references to art history once considered avant-garde, Thompson takes a minimalist approach to clothing that invites lookers and wearers alike to consider what these artists, movements, and ideas mean now.

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