Kelli Connell

This foundational course introduces students to photography as a tool for creative expression and critical inquiry. Through hands-on assignments, students develop technical skills in camera operation, composition, and digital printing while exploring photography¿s evolving nature and impact on perception. Readings, screenings, and discussions provide a critical framework for analyzing images¿both personal and cultural. Emphasizing both conceptual growth and practical application, the course encourages experimentation across genres and prepares students for advanced photographic study. Required for all subsequent photo courses.

This course provides an in-depth exploration of the conceptual and practical issues surrounding works that use image and text as a significant strategy in their communication. A wide range of image and text examples in contemporary practice will be examined. topics including artists who work with text; writers who work with images; strategies for generating thought-provoking image and text relationships; and topics such as time, autobiography, archival research, politics, memory, poetry, performance and interdisciplinary approaches will be discussed. Students complete assignments combining image and text.

This interdisciplinary capstone, with an emphasis on contemporary photography and visual culture, is structured as an intensive critique and mentoring class focused on the development and presentation of culminating work at the end of the BFA and the continued progression of studio work beyond the BFA exhibition. The course supports the production of self-initiated work, a successful BFA show and a road map for a sustainable art practice after graduation. Preparations for the BFA exhibition include workshopping project proposals, budgets, production schedules, the development of new work and an array of possible final presentation forms.

Readings, screenings and discussions will examine useful models of participation in cultural production and a critical framework for analyzing a range of platforms to share work online, in print and exhibition. Studio visits will provide insight into the day-to-day life of artists at various stages in their career ranging from current SAIC grad students to working professionals. 

Online and printed portfolios utilizing an ever-evolving archive of work will be refined along with professional supporting materials such as statements, CVs and artist talks necessary for a professional practice beyond graduation.

This graduate level studio seminar course is a hybrid of reading, discussion, making and critique, designed to pursue positions in historical and contemporary philosophy, critical analysis, and current thought relevant to photography and visual literacy. Throughout the semester, the course aims to explore the past and future of visual media and to look at its discourse in relation to life as an artist in the greater realm of culture, society and politics. Course programming includes critical readings, short and informal writing assignments, work and research presentations.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.