School of Visual Arts (SVA)
MFA Visual Narrative
136 West 21st St., 11th Floor
New York, NY 10011
sva.edu
mfavisualnarrative.sva.edu
“The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”
–Muriel Rukeyser
Calling all visual storytellers! The MFA Visual Narrative program is now accepting applications for summer 2016. This groundbreaking, low-residency program in interdisciplinary visual storytelling at the School of Visual Arts in New York City places equal emphasis on creative writing and visual expression. The program is designed for educators, working professionals and recent graduates from all creative disciplines who are dedicated to the art and craft of visual storytelling.
Applications are actively open, with the first round of reviews completed by the end of February. Acceptances will then continue on a rolling basis, as spots remain, to begin the program this June. The low-residency program includes three summer intensive sessions linked by two academic years of rich collaborative online study.
This interdisciplinary MFA was launched in 2013 by Chair Nathan Fox, an accomplished artist and illustrator. Fox’s vision is to prepare students to respond to the market’s growing demand for visual storytellers. Students will evolve their voices as both author and artist, and explore the strengths of multiple media platforms, from traditional visual arts and film to interactive digital narrative platforms. The 2015 inaugural thesis projects included an interactive memory-based journey of first heartbreak, an animated sci-fi comic, a narrative photo book about eating alone, a love story in stop-motion animation, a handwritten journal “found” on a subway bench and an interactive children’s book/app that features edible words.
To carry out this broad vision, the faculty is drawn from a range of creative fields and includes author/illustrator Edward Hemingway, critic/editor Bill Kartalopoulos (The Best American Comics), artist/prop designer Ross MacDonald (Hateful Eight, National Treasures: Book of Secrets, Seabiscuit), author Lisa Cron (Wired for Story), photographer Stacy Renee Morrison, Traditional Comics publisher/author Benjamin Marra, children’s literature author/critic/curator Leonard Marcus, author/game producer Ben Zackheim, and TV writer Ed Valentine (Fairly OddParents, Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man).
The program has recently expanded its capabilities with a new RisoLab (featuring Risograph printing) managed by artist/publisher Pan Terzis to support self-publishing, and is offering continuing ed classes this semester, including two online writing classes.
Learn more:
–Research the full list of faculty
–Meet the students and assess their work
–Review the thesis projects
–Visit the SVA department site, featuring a downloadable step-by-step application guide
–Explore the extensive external site
–Read about the continuing ed classes
–Curious? Write to [email protected]
