Photography Graduate Program

2019-2020 G R A D U AT E PROGRAMS

PHOTOGRAPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAMS

PHOTOGRAPHY Massachusetts College of Art and Design offers two graduate level programs in Photography: a Master of Fine Arts and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate.

MassArt’s 60-credit, two-year full-time MFA in Photography teaches the medium as a means of expression. Personal vision, experimentation within and without the boundaries of the still image, technical excellence, the history of photography, bookmaking, and contemporary criticism are emphasized. Over the course of the program’s thirty-year history, we have cultivated an intellectual environment in which graduate students refine methods of visual communication and arrive at shared meaning.

Image by Matthew Monteith, Photo Faculty

Straight photography, mixed and new media, material explorations, and moving image are all encouraged.

The welcoming atmosphere in our department, in combination with our first-rate facilities, provides an environment where students converse and experiment

“Our programs seek

as they strive to produce work that is meaningful both

individuals who approach

to the individual and to others.

the medium of photography from diverse angles yet

The Post-Baccalaureate Certificate is a full-time one-

wish to participate in a

year program for photographers seeking an advanced

community of artists.

level of discourse and new or improved technical skills.

We want to foster each

The program helps students develop their personal visions and cohesive portfolios in preparation for

student’s best abilities:

graduate school or as an end in itself.

visual, verbal, critical.”

- Laura McPhee

Cover Image: Brittany Marcoux, MFA ’16 / Photography Image by Eric Ruby, MFA ’14 / Photography

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PHOTOGRAPHY CORE FACULTY

MASSART’S PHOTOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT HAS AN INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED FACULTY WHO SUPPORT

LAURA McPHEE, PROFESSOR /PHOTOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT CHAIR & PROGRAM COORDINATOR

OUR GRADUATE STUDENTS

Laura McPhee’s photographs have been exhibited worldwide and are the subject of several monographs, including The Home and The World and River of No Return. She is noted for her largescale landscapes and portraits of the people who live and work in them. She is currently working in the desert west of the United States where she is chronicling visual stories about time, both geologic and human.

CONSIDERED AND VISUALLY

IN PRODUCING RIGOROUSLY ACCOMPLISHED BODIES OF WORK.

Laura McPhee

MATTHEW CONNORS, PROFESSOR Matthew Connors uses photography to engage in the external world in largely international contexts. He navigates between reportage, poetry, and surrealism to find different visual idioms that render the currents of history with emotional urgency. He has been included in numerous national and international exhibitions, including New Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2018. His monograph, Fire in Cairo, was published in 2015 by SPBH Editions.

Left: Lucy Wood Baird, MFA ’16 / Photography, Thesis Exhibition Installation View

Matthew Connors

BARBARA BOSWORTH, PROFESSOR Barbara Bosworth’s large-format images explore both overt and subtle relationships between humans and the rest of the natural world. Her caring attention to the world around her results in images that inspire viewers to look closely. She exhibits her landscape photographs throughout the United States, most recently at the Denver Art Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Peabody Essex Museum. Her book, The Meadow, was published

by Radius in 2015. The Heavens was released in 2018.

Barbara Bosworth

MATTHEW MONTEITH, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Matthew Monteith was a 2001 recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to the Czech Republic, and the subsequent monograph Czech Eden was published by Aperture in 2006. Monteith was a 2008 recipient of the Abigail Cohen Rome Prize. His editorial work has appeared in many magazines, including The New York Times Magazine and Interview. He has produced commissioned projects for Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Microsoft, and many others. Monteith was also a 2018-19 Fulbright Research and Teaching Fellow at Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

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Matthew Monteith 4

STUDENT OPPORTUNITIES MFA students are afforded numerous opportunities for classroom teaching experience. Paid teaching and graduate assistantships in our undergraduate program are available to graduate students, and students in Photography can choose to co-teach at least one course during their time at the college.

All graduate students in Photography have access to our first-rate facilities, including camera and lighting equipment, large-format inkjet printers, digital

Madyha Jan Leghari, MFA ‘18 / Photography, Thesis Exhibition Installation View, photo by

labs, lighting studios, and darkrooms.

Eduardo L. Rivera, MFA ‘16 / Photography

In addition, all MFA and Post-Bac students have the use of personal studio spaces (private or shared), for the duration of their program of study. This includes the summer between years 1 and 2 for MFA candidates.

Graduate students are also afforded a variety of opportunities to exhibit their work both on and off-campus, in group shows and with their graduating cohort in their final thesis exhibition.

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PHOTOGRAPHY ALUMNI SEVERAL POST-GRADUATE RESIDENCY OPPORTUNITIES ARE OFFERED EACH YEAR TO RECENT ALUMNI, INCLUDING Qinrui Hua (MFA ’18 / Photography), 2018 MFA Thesis Exhibition Installation View; Photo by Eduardo L. Rivera (MFA ‘16 / Photography)

INTERNATIONAL TEACHING RESIDENCIES IN BEIJING, CHINA, AND BANGALORE, INDIA. THE GRADUATE PROGRAMS ALSO

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Qinrui Hua, MFA ‘18

COORDINATE AND PROVIDE FUNDING

Below: Qinrui Hua (MFA ’18 / Photography), Kick It Out and Kill It, 2018, photobook

FOR LOCAL AND REGIONAL ARTIST Qinrui Hua joined MassArt’s MFA program in

RESIDENCIES FOR ALUMNI AT MASS

Photography in 2016 after completing her BA in

MoCA, THE LONGY SCHOOL OF MUSIC OF

Visual Art and Art History at Fordham University

BARD COLLEGE, AND THE SKOWHEGAN

in 2015. Her photobook Kick It Out and Kill It,

SCHOOL OF PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.

begun at MassArt in her elective course “The Above: Lucang Huang (MFA ’17 / Photography) and Janet Loren Hill (MFA ‘17 / 2D) in China during their Fall 2018 MassArt alumni teaching residency at the Beijing Royal School

Qinrui Hua

Ordering of Intensities” with professor Matthew Connors, was shortlisted for the 6th Singapore International Photography Festival and exhibited at Singapore’s National Design Centre in the Fall

Below: Students of Danielle Dean (MFA ’17 / Photography) at The Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology working on a classroom project during Danielle’s Winter 2019 Alumni

of 2018. Hua is currently Program Manager and

Residency in Bangalore, India

Beijing.

Assistant to the Director at Gallery Weekend,

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Eduardo L. Rivera, MFA ‘16

Below: Eduardo L. Rivera (MFA ’16 / Photography) A Seat At The Table, 2017

Eduardo L. Rivera’s work has been featured in various web and print publications and was commissioned by The Financial Times weekend magazine and The New York Times Magazine.

He was a 2017 MassArt alumni teaching resident at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore, India and a 2019 resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Rivera was a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in photography, and a runner-up for the 2018 Aperture Portfolio Prize. He currently teaches in the Art, Film, and Visual Studies department at Harvard University.

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Eduardo L. Rivera

PHOTOGRAPHY LECTURE SERIES Our celebrated Photography Lecture Series brings several speakers — artists, historians, editors, and curators from diverse backgrounds and geographic locations — to the college every semester. These are leading practitioners in the medium who inspire fresh conversations and new ideas amongst those in our department and in the broader public. All of our guest speakers do studio visits with graduate students, granting them access to a wide array of prominent voices in the field of photography.

Above: Image by Matthew Monteith, Photo Faculty

RECENT PARTICIPANTS INCLUDE:

Left: Image by Scott Offen, Post-Bac ’17 / Photography Below:

Roger Ballen Makeda Best Lucas Blalock Bruno Ceschel Cristina de Middel Jessica Eaton Roe Ethridge Daniel Gordon Katy Grannan Deana Lawson Laura Letinsky Nicholas Muellner Zanele Muholi Oluremi Onabanjo Arthur Ou Christian Patterson Eva Respini Fazal Sheikh Jem Southam Lucy Soutter Sara VanDerBeek 9

Image by Soha Saghazadeh, MFA ‘18 / Photography)

ABOUT MASSART Founded in 1873, MassArt has a unique legacy of leadership as the first freestanding, public college of art and design in the country and the nation’s first art school to grant a degree.

MassArt’s mission is both lofty and grounded: to prepare students from diverse backgrounds to positively impact every society they join, and to become leaders in the creative economy as artists, designers, and educators.

Since its founding, MassArt has consistently advocated for access to and equity in art, design, and education. Our alumni have long been agents of change in Boston and beyond, driven by independence, entrepreneurship, and passion.

FALL 2020 PRIORITY APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 6, 2020

CONTACT US Graduate Admissions: gradadmissions@massart.edu Facebook.com/MassArtBoston

Associate Director of Graduate Admissions: Stacy Petersen Domurat 617.879.7238

@MassArtBoston @MassArt