Art + Social Practice MFA

Apply for PSU’s Art and Social Practice MFA Program
Included in Artsy’s list of the Top 15 Art Programs in the country, Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice MFA Program is a three-year flexible residency program (online or in-person) combining individual practice, group work, community partnerships, and experiential learning with diverse faculty. A wide range of practices including curation, writing, performance, conceptual art, video, design, and visual/studio art are encouraged within a socially engaged framework. Blending critical and professional practice, alternative pedagogy, collaborative social engagement, and transdisciplinary exploration produces an immersive educational environment for students interested in working as socially engaged artists. As an extension of the program’s unique approach, graduate students have the opportunity to collaborate directly in ongoing projects including: KSMoCA, the Art and Social Practice Archive, SoFA Journal, and Assembly.

The MFA Program is accepting applications for fall 2025 until January 25, 2025 at 11:59pm PST. Get more information and begin your application online. Applications open December 1, 2024.

KSMoCA’s artists-in-residence and upcoming events
The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA) is a functioning contemporary art museum inside a public elementary school in Northeast Portland, Oregon. During the 2024–25 school year, the museum is hosting three artists-in-residence. These residencies continue our ongoing, immersive arts programming with pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Artists-in-residence develop and create artworks in collaboration with a cohort of elementary school students which are exhibited side-by-side in the museum at the school. These works and images of their process will be featured in printed exhibit catalogs and each artist gives public talks on a rotating schedule throughout the year. Visit our website for dates and times of artist talks and exhibit openings.

KSMoCA 2024–25 artists-in-residence: Adriene Cruz, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, and Xavier Pierce.

About KSMoCA
Founded in 2014 by Portland State University professors and artists Lisa Jarrett and Harrell Fletcher, KSMoCA connects public school students with internationally renowned artists through collaborative workshops, exhibitions, artists lectures and site-specific commissions. KSMoCA’s programs are developed in partnership with the Dr. MLK Jr. School community, PSU’s Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design faculty and graduate and undergraduate students, and contemporary artists.

Students learn through experience about museum practices by participating in KSMoCA as curators, preparators, artists, gallerists, writers, and docents. The project reimagines how museums, public schools, and universities can work together to shift culture and perspectives by creating radical intersections for sharing resources across organizations.

The majority of students at Dr. MLK Jr. School identify as Black and non-Black students of color, and the school is located in a gentrifying historically Black neighborhood. KSMoCA’s programs and participating artists directly reflect this context. The museum works to empower the school community whose voices and experiences remain underrepresented locally and in society at large.

*Images above: (1) MFA students during the annual retreat at the beginning of the school year. (2) Students participate in a group activity led by their classmate. (3) Moe Hassan leads a tour of The Imagine: a photography exhibition by MOE at KSMoCA (Dr Martin Luther King Jr School Museum of Contemporary Art). At the time of his photography exhibit, Hassan was a second-grade student at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School, a pre-kindergarten through fifth grade public school in Portland, Oregon. The exhibition was curated by members of the KSMoCA Student Curatorial Committee.