Sunday, October 15
Join us on campus for one of the nation's largest portfolio days, plus come a day early for "Saturday with SAIC" and learn how to make the most of your NPD experience!
Undergraduate Admissions
Chicago National Portfolio Day + Saturday w/ SAIC
Undergraduate Studies
Explore Our Programs
You have the creative freedom to explore and customize your education through curricular paths that may cross departments or concentrate in a single medium.
Why SAIC
It's Your Future
Are you equal parts sculpture and writing? Interested in filmmaking only? At SAIC, we help you navigate a dynamic interdisciplinary curriculum that gives you the freedom to explore new possibilities, guides you professionally, and prepares you for a creative future.
Experience Matters
SAIC student internships offer opportunities in a mindblowing variety of fields, from fashion and tech to media and nonprofits. SAIC's art- and design-focused internship program is one of the oldest and most successful in the US.
Your Curiosity is a Plus
At SAIC, you earn about a quarter of your credits by choosing from an array of fascinating and relevant courses in the liberal arts and sciences. The combination of creative, research, problem-solving, and rigorous thinking skills you gain as a result gives you an unusually strong foundation for life after SAIC, whatever path you choose.
Our Museum, the Art Institute
Don't be surprised if, in the middle of a class, your professor decides to walk the class over to see a specific artwork at the world-renowned Art Institute of Chicago museum. You'll have free access to more than 300,000 works of art (the third-largest collection in the world) right in your backyard.
A Creative Center
Chicago is an easily navigable and endlessly inspiring landscape of 77 distinct and richly diverse neighborhoods, and SAIC sits at its creative apex. You’ll learn in the heart of the city’s vibrant art and design scene, supported by a network of faculty and local alums.
Meet Us Where You Are
Online
Take a tour, have a one-on-one portfolio review, and watch information sessions all from the comfort of home.
On Campus
See our facilities up close, meet current students and staff, and experience our home of Chicago.
Around the World
Events across the US and around the world allow you to meet faculty and staff, have your portfolio reviewed, and hear about the SAIC experience.
Reid Arowood, 2023
Take the Next Step
How to Apply
Wherever you are on the journey to an undergrad degree in art and design, we're here to help.
Paying for Your Education
SAIC Scholarships
SAIC awards merit and need-based scholarships and grants to help break down barriers to access.
Federal & State Aid
Federal and state aid assistance is available for our graduate and undergraduate students.
Outside Scholarships
To help finance your education, there’s a wide range of financial aid options available outside of SAIC.
Maria Gaspar’s Power of Place
"A piece of art isn’t just about paint on a surface, it’s about the surface itself. The brick, the dilapidated building, the impact of those textures. The meaning and history of those places changes the outcome of the work." – Maria Gaspar, Associate Professor in Contemporary Practices
Maria Gaspar
The Artist
Maria Gaspar
Maria Gaspar is an interdisciplinary artist and an associate professor in Contemporary Practices at SAIC. Her work negotiates the politics of location through installation, sculpture, sound, and performance. She’s the recipient of an Imagining Justice Artist Grant, a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artist as Activist Fellowship, and a Creative Capital Award.
Image Credit: Zeltzin Vazquez
The Inspiration
Walking through Chicago’s Little Village, Gaspar began to reflect on what it meant to have the largest architecture of the neighborhood she grew up in be the Cook County Department of Corrections. “I had this moment of reflection, thinking there’s something we can do here to radically transcend this place of detention. This could be something powerful.”
Maria Gaspar, Unblinking Eyes, Watching, 2019, vinyl adhesive. Photo: Claire Britt
The Work
In Unblinking Eyes, Watching, Gaspar printed high-resolution images of the north end of the jail to scale and plastered them onto the wall of the Chicago Cultural Center. In this work, Gaspar forces the viewer to think about the presence and proximity of these detention sites and our own relationships to power.
Close-up of Unblinking Eyes, Watching. Photo: Claire Britt
The Process
At SAIC, Gaspar wants her classroom to be an inclusive and inspiring place. “Teaching and learning is such a magical and transformative process and it must include justice. Working with others, whether it be people on my block, in another neighborhood, or at SAIC, it’s an opportunity to engage, to understand one another, and to challenge the systems that continue to divide and oppress."
An artist leans against a table in a large, modern studio
What Is This?
For more than 155 years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago has been a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers, and scholars.
Artist Angel Otero
SAIC Initiatives
SAIC Graduate Studies
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