Social Practice
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
Connect art, policy and collective action
This unique program is for artists and creative thinkers who want to connect art, policy and collective action. We prepare graduate students who want to take on big issues and complex problems, such as equity, education and emerging technologies, to think critically, evaluate compassionately and create inventively.
Students in our program can take courses across the university, including at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design and Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration.
Read about our M.A. in New Media Photojournalism or our M.F.A. in Fine Arts for those interested in earning those degrees.
Above image: Adele Yiseol Kenworthy’s "what is something you always wished I asked and knew about you?" Found and foraged plant material. From NEXT Opening Night in April 2022.
INFORMATION SESSIONS
Date: Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m. ET
Location: Online
Date: Thursday, October 24, 2024
Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m. ET
Location: Online
Date: Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m. ET
Location: Online
THE DEGREE: MFA IN SOCIAL PRACTICE WITH A FOCUS IN PUBLIC POLICY
The Master of Fine Arts degree in Social Practice is designed for emerging creative thinkers to develop skills in both the arts and public policy sectors during an intensive, two-year, 60-credit degree. Courses are designed to set up dialogues on how creative practices can be used to produce change.
The program brings together artists, designers, organizers, researchers and policymakers to initiate learning opportunities and projects that address the critical questions of our time. It combines study in experimental, relational and performative creative practices with academic research, collaborative work and field-based experiential learning in Washington, D.C. - a global hub for policy makers, tech leaders, NGO's and cultural institutions. In this program, we address the following questions:
- As artists, how can we better connect our creative actions with our desire for impact?
- How might artists address problems that other fields either can't see or can't touch?
- How might we better prepare ourselves to navigate the fields with which our work intersects?
OUR CROSS-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH
Students can take courses across the Corcoran School and the Trachtenberg School at the George Washington University. This program aims to initiate cross-disciplinary projects with public impact, pulling faculty from across GW’s Columbian College. Students have access to academic offerings that support their project goals in areas across the university, including public policy, data and spatial analysis, cultural studies and social theory.
As a part of the Corcoran community, students are provided with world-class professors, newly renovated classrooms and studios and the multitude of resources available to the George Washington University community.
ADMISSIONS
To apply to the program, follow the graduate application process and submit all materials by April 1. For fellowship consideration, the deadline is February 1. All applicants must have an undergraduate degree.
Admission Requirements Graduate Admissions
COSTS & FUNDING
The Student Accounts Office provides up to date cost information on our program. We do offer some partial fellowships to MFA students each year. To be considered for a fellowship, you must apply for fall admission. You may also find fellowships through the Office of Fellowships & Assistantships. The Office of Student Financial Assistance also has more information on aid opportunities.
SOCIAL PRACTICE IN ACTION
Caroline Woolard’s practice focuses, at its heart, on collaboration, bringing seemingly disparate worlds together. Woolard was a visiting professor at the Corcoran from 2023-24. Read more in GW Today and the GW Hatchet. Video by Nicholas Aguirre Zafiro ('25).
Shawn Shafner (‘24) created a world of earthly, acorn delights to crack open this undervalued resource. Community members ground acorns into flour, distilled natural acorn dyes, and stuck their hands in a giant bin of acorns. Acornucopia! offered a sensory wonderland of experiences, turning a ubiquitous nut into nutritious food, with invitations to aid in reforestation efforts. Read more.
Three Black Wall Streets
One of our visiting professors, Paul Rucker, as well as Interaction Design Professor Kevin Patton, Social Practice professors, and Exhibition Design and Interaction Design students, worked tirelessly on this project exploring the Black Wall Streets in America. Featured in NPR, Rucker tells his story of growing up as a Black man in the U.S., and how he is using his experiences to educate others and uplift Black entrepreneurs and innovators. Read the NPR article about Three Black Wall Streets here.
MOBILE MOSQUE PROJECT
In 2017, Ghana ThinkTank presented the Mobile Mosque at the CounterCurrent festival, an Islamic structure that traveled throughout Houston on flatbed trailers. For one week, the Muslim community in Houston took over this Mosque, offering a place for prayer, poetry, music, art, and a fundraiser for Syrian refugees. The steel components later traveled to Detroit to become part of a long-term project focusing on the role of Art in American Islamic relations and housing equity.
Examples of Social Practice in Action
RECENT STUDENTS AND ALUMNI
CONTACTS
Campus Address
Flagg Building
500 17th St, NW
Basement
csarts
gwu [dot] edu (csarts[at]gwu[dot]edu)
Program Information
Program Administrator
Kamille Jackson
csartsgwu [dot] edu (csarts[at]gwu[dot]edu)
Program Head
Dean Kessmann
kessmanngwu [dot] edu (kessmann[at]gwu[dot]edu)
Advising
Associate Professor, Studio Arts Program; Graduate Advisor, M.F.A. in Fine Arts and Social Practice
Maria del Carmen Montoya
carmengwu [dot] edu (carmen[at]gwu[dot]edu)