October 2016
Nomad/9 residency
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota
The Nomad/9 MFA St. Paul, MN residency concluded on October 30, 2016. The two-week residency began with visiting Bdote sites with Dakota artists and activists Mona Smith, Ramona Kitto Stately, and Lisa Farmer. This ongoing dialogue about contemporary indigeneity established a foundation for the Art & Place Reconsidered workshop during week one. During this time water was an overarching theme as students worked with Sandy Spieler on water and public ceremony; Seitu Jones, on his work in the Frogtown and Rondo neighborhoods of St. Paul; Shanai Matteson and Colin Kloeckner who presented The Water Bar and addressed local drinking water infrastructure via a visit to a water treatment plant; Christine Baeumler and her community work with the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary on the shores of the Mississippi; and Mona Smith who presented her Dakota media interventions within cultural and educational establishments of the Twin Cities. Week two featured The Distinguished Practitioner course at Public Art St. Paul, during which students developed a case study of Public Art St. Paul’s City Artist program, which embeds artists within municipal government. City Artists Amanda Lovelee and Aaron Dysart introduced students to their ongoing public art initiatives through hands-on project work. Christy Gast led the Critique Exchange workshop in which students participated in critical feedback via an experimental format based on the writing genre of the published artist interview. The residency concluded with a performative lecture by Christy Gast in which she addressed her recent cross-disciplinary work in Tierra Del Fuego with the Ensayos collective.
About our program
The Nomad/9 Interdisciplinary MFA is a low-residency MFA program based at the University of Hartford, Hartford Art School. The 26-month, accredited program visits sites throughout the Americas, using a living classroom approach to hands-on learning. During each residency students engage in a reciprocal relationship with the place, learning from local practitioners and contributing to regional initiatives. The curriculum brings together art, ecology, the technology continuum (from craft to code), and the study of history and culture. Featuring an open outcome philosophy, the MFA includes artists from diverse creative disciplines on the faculty, and in the student cohort. Current MFA students’ first year learning experiences include green woodworking in a forest classroom; participating in a workshop on materiality, death and regeneration; practicing performative strategies in relation to self and site; and experiencing North American indigenous knowledge systems. Throughout the program students use multiple genres of writing to develop their art practice in the context of regenerative culture and resiliency. Between residencies, students work independently, while working closely with a faculty advisor. The curriculum supports artists working in diverse visual art genres. Faculty and Visiting Artists include: John Bielenberg, Mark Dion, Christy Gast, Hope Ginsburg, Seitu Jones, Amanda Lovelee, Shanai Matteson, Ernesto Pujol, Allison Smith, Linda Weintraub and Caroline Woolard.
To learn more
To learn more about our program in person, visit us at the Alternative Art School Fair at Pioneer Works on November 19 through 20, and at the National Graduate Portfolio Day in Chicago on November 5, 10am to 2pm.
Online opportunities to further explore this innovative MFA include our upcoming free webinar on December 9 at 2pm, and the Art & Design Grad School Virtual Fair on November 3 from 10am to noon and 2 to 4pm. Additionally, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or visit our website for curricular information and application deadlines.
