For this year’s Assembly we have tried to find even more painless (but still effective) ways to structure and organize a conference. Maybe it’s not a conference, but it’s too hard trying to come up with another more appropriate term for it, so let’s just call it that. Anyway, what we did was just agree to a set of days, May 12-15th, and a schedule of times (mostly one hour blocks with a few deviations, and times for coffee and drinks and food, etc) then each student in the PSU MFA Art and Social Practice Program agreed to be responsible to create an event or activity etc. for two of the time slots, and that at least one of those projects would connect with a community partner (a local person, group or organization). We also included a few affiliated people in the mix—a grad student from the University of Oregon, our British Council Exchange artists, and a strange dude from Canada who is working on a project with PICA. Together it should make for a nice little set of public events and activities all with connections to art and social practice in one way or another.
At this point I’m kind of thinking about Assembly as an alternative version of an end of year MFA exhibition, except instead of the students showing studio made objects in a gallery, the social practice students are creating participatory projects that happen all over the city. Working on the social practice program in general has been an interesting opportunity to examine the standard approaches to how traditional MFA education operates. We have slowly (but surely) been replacing, augmenting, and removing the normal elements of the system, and in their place have come up with a different framework, one that we hope will not only launch students out into the world to create amazing work (and support for that work, you have to pay the rent!) but will also facilitate creating that kind of practice while still in the three years of the program. Assembly has become an important piece in this new approach to understanding and formalizing what it can mean to be an artist in society today.
Harrell Fletcher
Portland, Oregon
4.22.16
PSU’s Art and Social Practice MFA is a 3-year, flexible residency program that combines individual research, group work, and experiential learning. The program’s blend of critical and professional practice, progressive pedagogy, collaborative social engagement, and transdisciplinary exploration produces an immersive educational environment.
The 90 credit, 3-year course encourages students to shape the direction of their own education and continually develop the program as a whole. Students connect their art practice to research in the field of Social Practice through electives and community partnerships, promoting cross disciplinarily engagement. Graduating students each produce a public graduate thesis project, an in-depth written text exploring a relevant connection to their practice, and a public artist lecture that surveys their work in the program. Each student may also produce a book for the Social Practice Reference Points series on a prominent theme, person or as a workbook.
The program accepts approximately six students annually. The deadline for applying is January 8th. Interested persons are encouraged to make arrangements to visit the program.