Once a week the Social Practice MFA group meets for a six-hour workshop. These sessions are guided by the current students and structured to accommodate the needs of the group. During this time the group can find them selves going over the logistics of current group projects or collaborations, on bike field trips, discussing readings, sharing current work, being led in a group exercise or getting a lecture from a local expert on the art of Feng Shui as it relates to social art.

Students in the Social Practice program work in real world situations. Students in the past have been involved in such projects as an exhibition at City Hall, contributing work to PICA’s TBA festival, Work Sound Gallery, preparing RFQ submissions for group public art projects.

The Social Practice MFA group is also strongly encouraged to participate in the current discourse surrounding social practice and art. As a group in 2009 the Social Practice MFA’s will present in a panel discussion at the SF MoMA as part of the exhibition Participatory Art Since 1950. In addition to this students have attended national and international conferences on socially engaged art as presenters, most recently one of our students, Sandy Sampson, has been accepted to present research at ONEDAYSCULPTURE, a symposium organized by Claire Doherty. Field trips also play largely in the program. Within the past two years of the program students have traveled to Regina, SK (Open Engagement: Art After Aesthetic Distance), New York, Vancouver, Victoria, Joshua Tree, CA (HDTS), San Francisco (Upcoming SF MoMA presentation).

Image: The class taking a break to do some roof top yoga.