MFA & MA GRADUATE THESIS CATALOGUE (INDIVIDUAL WORKS BELOW)
MESSAGES FROM PROGRAM DIRECTOR AND TEACHING FACULTY
The work you see here represents a 2 year journey for Moore’s MFA candidates, and for the MAs it has been an intensive 10 months—but both have resulted in thoughtful, urgent and beautiful artworks, ideas, and research. There have been crucial relationships forged along the way, with one another as peers in a cohort, with our esteemed faculty over individual or multiple courses, with external critics and thesis readers, and the many guests who come for a lecture, a classroom talk or a studio visit. This network of people represent the intentionality and richness of our curriculum and they all make substantial efforts to engage one another where they are in terms of their concerns and interests. These students—Sara Kleinert, Camille O'Connor, and Chelsey Webber-Brandis—have demonstrated a generosity with one another and an openness to experiences and conversations that is remarkable. They have crafted, considered, edited, mulled-over, spoken about, researched, and tested their ideas about how to make and facilitate art experiences that can be transformative comments on and interventions in society. I can confidently say that everyone at Moore expects great things and strong impacts from them all.
- DANIEL TUCKER, GRADUATE PROGRAM DIRECTOR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Early into the coronavirus pandemic, we realized that if there was to be a thesis exhibition or accompanying public program, it wouldn’t look familiar. Remarkably, our MFA and MA candidates, Chelsea, Sara, and Camille, were already dealing with issues present in the pandemic—public and private space, health, alienation, systemic challenges, transportation, and civic responsibility.
The students decided to collaborate on a panel discussion, Utilizing Art to Navigate Public Access. They planned and implemented every aspect. It was a lot of work, both stressful and rewarding, but through our Zoom classes, I could see them reveling in it—crafting invitations, questions, even the tech minutia. The panel went long and there was a sense of satisfaction. There were a lot of unknowns—but the groundwork for success was already there, laid by Program Director Daniel Tucker and Dean Patti Phillips. The program was set up to be nimble and generative for moments like these, as artists need to be.
The class I teach, Lived Thesis, is dedicated to the planning and installation of student MFA exhibitions and the creation of an accompanying public program. This year, because of the pandemic, my class merged with the Studio Projects class taught by fellow adjunct, Anna Drozdowski, who brought a sense of calm, thoughtfulness, and dedication. Utilizing Art was the practical application of what the class was meant to teach. I found it to be magical in the way it unfolded. I’m sure that this is the first of many public programs that the students will conduct.
- JACQUE LIU, ADJUNCT FACULTY, MFA SOCIALLY-ENGAGED STUDIO ART AND MA IN SOCIALLY-ENGAGED ART