Photography, MFA
The 60-credit curriculum includes a wide variety of core and elective studio courses, along with a complement of liberal arts offerings geared toward artists. The core curriculum, largely shared with the general MFA in Fine Arts, includes required courses in Studio Practice and Theory, Thesis, and Graduate Symposium. For Photography majors, the curriculum includes Acts of Recognition, a seminar that introduces perspectives on art, ethics, visual culture, race, and equity. This required course focuses on photography and lens-based media and the politics of representation through art history, cultural studies, critical race theory, gender studies, and queer studies.
The student’s studio experience is augmented by the Visiting Artists Lecture Series and the Pratt Photography Talks, which together bring approximately 12 relevant artists and scholars to campus per year for talks and studio visits.
In addition, students participate in periodic and constructive interdisciplinary reviews: Survey in their second semester, Public Critique in their third, and Preview in their final semester. During the course of the program, there are robust opportunities for individual studio visits with visiting artists, critics, curators, and writers, as well as exhibition and open studio opportunities here in Brooklyn.
The program culminates in the capstone Thesis, which incorporates both an exhibition and writing representing individual artist’s works.
| Semester 1 | Credits | |
|---|---|---|
| PHOT-650 Photography Studio | 3 | |
| PHOT-695B | Photography Studio Context | 3 |
| PHOT-611 | Acts of Recognition: Ethics Race and Representation | 3 |
| Art Criticism, History, Analysis Elective | 3 | |
| Studio Elective | 3 | |
| Credits | 15 | |
| Semester 2 | ||
| PHOT-650 Photography Studio | 3 | |
| PHOT-699A | Symposium I | 3 |
| Art Criticism, History, Analysis Elective | 3 | |
| Studio Elective | 6 | |
| Credits | 15 | |
| Semester 3 | ||
| PHOT-650 Photography Studio | 3 | |
| Art Criticism, History, Analysis Elective | 3 | |
| Studio Elective | 3 | |
| PHOT-699B | Symposium II | 3 |
| All Institute Elective | 3 | |
| Credits | 15 | |
| Semester 4 | ||
| PHOT-650 Photography Studio | 3 | |
| PHOT-621 Thesis | 3 | |
| Studio Elective | 9 | |
| Credits | 15 | |
| Total Credits | 60 | |
Expression (Artwork)
Artist conveys meaning based on their research, vision, and craft. That meaning is clear in the relationship of the work to the meta work such as speech or text. The evidence of meaning includes the production of knowledge within their work.
Expansion
Artist is open to a rigorous and evolving exploration of the potential for the work.
Research
Artist engages in an open and experimental approach to visual, textual, contextual, sensory, and material approaches in their work. Artist embraces risks, failure, and digression.
Context
Artist’s statements and artwork express a relationship with an internal (ie. personal history) or an external (ie. social history) space of meaning. This can include synthesis of art history, criticism, and analysis into the studio work.
Connection or Community
Artist and work engender a meaningful relationship with other artists, citizens, and individuals or groups which enhances the meaning of the work and the experience for the audience or public, as defined by the project.