It might be useful to describe what the Master of Fine Arts program at Cornell shares in common with other leading M.F.A. programs nationally and internationally and what may be distinctive about graduate studies in the visual arts at Cornell. It seems that most advanced programs today encourage a creative and intellectual practice within a pedagogical environment that fosters independent and critical thinking, with the resources and facilities to accommodate and encourage an ambitious range of studio practices, taking place in a community of faculty, students, and visiting artists that challenges, encourages, questions, and advises. Recently, too many M.F.A. programs have — like the one at Cornell — adopted a position that encourages interdisciplinary practices and questions a pedagogy informed solely by Western models and traditions of art.
Beyond this, however, the Cornell M.F.A. program has clear, distinguishing features. The program here is a unique community with no more than 11 or 12 students in its two-year program. This admittedly small scale might appear overly rarified if not for the exceptional breadth and integration of its context. The art department is part of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP), a resource-rich environment in which to explore the increasing intersections of art with spatial/urban/architectural theories and practices that are emerging through rapid globalization and explosive media and technological innovations. Beyond AAP, Cornell offers programs and graduate degrees in almost every imaginable established and emerging field. This particular context offers opportunities for extreme focus within the small contours of the M.F.A. program and possibilities of discursive research in the intellectually diverse dimensions of a leading university. This dialectic of concentration and expansion characterizes the creative potential of independent research imaginatively applied by M.F.A. students at Cornell.
Although Cornell does not offer the full cultural amenities of a large urban center, its intellectual resources and connectedness are vast, providing the unique combination of pastoral retreat and global integration. To augment this geographic dynamic, students accepted into the M.F.A. program typically receive generous scholarships that encourage both focus without distraction and discovery without limitation.
The M.F.A. at Cornell is an opportunity and challenge for artists to create relevant, adaptive, and sustainable practices. Accepting the complex, often demanding pleasures of art, research, labor, and experimentation, I hope you will contact us if the M.F.A. at Cornell is a program and a place where your ideas, commitment, and passion for a connective art practice can develop.
Michael Ashkin
Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Art
