Course General Description

The MA in Art, Place + Public Studies uniquely addresses the impact and potentialities of contemporary art practices in public space. The program emphasizes critical awareness of the impact of the arts in specific contexts, along with the agency of artists and scholars to make socially conscious contributions. Students study relevant scholarly literatures at the nexus of art history, visual cultural studies, critical theory, urban sociology, and critical geography, to foster complex and contextualized ways of thinking about how the arts are entangled with transformations of planetary space.

School General Description

Founded in 1871, San Francisco Art Institute is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious schools of higher education in contemporary art. San Francisco Art Institute is dedicated to the intrinsic value of art and its vital role in shaping and enriching society and the individual. As a diverse community of working artists and scholars, SFAI provides its students with a rigorous education in the fine arts and preparation for a life in the arts through an immersive studio environment, an integrated liberal arts curriculum, and critical engagement with the world.