Otis College of Art and Design
9045 Lincoln Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90045
www.otis.edu
Engage the world and effect social change through art
Otis College of Art and Design’s MFA in Public Practice is the only accredited program in the Southern California region dedicated exclusively to providing artists with advanced skills in social practice art.
Public Practice (also called Social Practice and other terms) freely blurs the lines among object making, performance, political activism, community organizing, environmentalism and investigative journalism, creating a deeply participatory art that often flourishes outside the gallery and museum system. Public Practice connects artistic practices to notions of public democracy, whether as political commentary, community formation, activism, engaged learning, or various forms of collaboration.
Practitioners often engage particular audiences and communities in collaborative processes to identify key issues, promote public discourse, and catalyze social change within specific institutions, neighborhoods, and other public contexts.
The Graduate Public Practice Program prepares artists to contribute to equitable and pluralistic societies through art production, collaboration, and working with communities. We offer broad latitude for individual interests by supporting both collaborative and individual modes of art production in urban and rural social contexts. Students design individual educational plans that include community-based and studio art, history and theory, augmented by a menu of elective courses in digital media, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and writing.
Under the leadership of Suzanne Lacy, renowned author, artist, educator, and theorist of socially engaged art, highly respected professionals and guest artists teach in classroom settings, in studio critiques, and in the field. The long list of stellar international professionals who have participated in the program includes MacArthur Fellow Rick Lowe, curators Sally Tallant from the Liverpool Biennial and Karen Moss, theorists Bill Kelley Jr. and Steven Wright from Paris, community activists Sara Daleiden and Patrice Cullers, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, and internationally known artists Jeanne Van Heeswik, Pablo Helguera, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and Andrea Bowers.
Applications for the fall 2015 semester are now being accepted online.
