Graduate Overview

The Low-Residency MFA program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago 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.

A rotating core of SAIC faculty delivers on-campus and online instruction, including individual and group critiques, one-on-one studio advising, art history and theory seminars, and professional practices courses. As a program that brings together artists of all disciplines, LRMFA’s curriculum is scaffolded through the concept of “poetics,” from the Greek poiema, meaning “a made thing.” What unites us in the Low-Res MFA is that we are all exploring what it means to make things: conceptually, materially, and relationally. Poetics is a transdisciplinary framework that brings us together around, and provides shared language for, this inquiry.

Over the course of the seven-semester MFA program, students attend three consecutive six-seek summer sessions structured around weekly seminars, studio visits with faculty and visiting artists, and a wide range of readings on art-making, distribution, and interpretation methods. The summer intensives also include a series of specialized professional practice courses. These intensive summer residencies introduce students to resources necessary for off-campus semesters, expose them to studios and galleries in Chicago, and aid in the development of networks needed for a successful transition into professional practice. In the spring and fall semesters between summer residencies, you will work remotely from your home studio and participate in rigorous online courses and advising.

Each year, students will focus on a distinct area of study. The first-year curriculum focuses on mobilizing the senses and constructing objects to explore the capture and destabilization of the viewer’s attention. Second-year students examine the connection between sensation and the creative process. Students spend their last year exploring the history of perception, including the relationships between objects and their viewers.

Learn more about the Low-Residency MFA program's courses and curriculum.

Attendance is mandatory for the entire six-week residency period as well as orientation.

June 14: New student orientation
June 17: Classes begin
June 19: Juneteenth, no classes
July 4: Holiday, no classes
July 26: Classes end
July 28: Graduation

A hallmark of the Low-Res program, the Visiting Artists & Scholars lecture series brings world-renowned artists and scholars from all disciplines to Chicago during the Low-Res MFA six-week summer residency period. Invited speakers deliver a public lecture open to the entire SAIC and Chicago community and the general public. Speakers then hold studio visits and participate in a colloquium exclusively for Low-Res MFA students.

Learn more about the 2024 Visiting Artists & Scholars lecture series lineup and past lectures.

Special note for international students admitted to the Low-Residency MFA program on F-1/J-1 visas: While the Low-Residency MFA program offers classes year-round, students on F-1/J-1 visas are only permitted to study at SAIC in-person during the summer residency session as per the federal regulations under which SAIC is permitted to host F-1/J-1 international students in this program as set forth by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP).

Low-Res MFA Admissions Information

Curriculum & Courses

Visit the graduate admissions website or contact the graduate admissions office at 312.629.6100, 800.232.7242 or gradmiss@saic.edu.