MFA.SCULP.2YR - MFA in Sculpture (2yr)

2025 - 2025 | Curriculum | 2-year program

The Sculpture program curriculum supports your participation in critical discourse and the development of interdisciplinary research modes that actively support varied ways of working and thinking. Here you also have access to advanced technologies, and we encourage you to pursue social and alternative practices.

MFA candidates engage in two years of intensive individual research and creative activity while at RISD. During the spring of the first year, you may also propose a self-designed course, with the possibility of teaching it during the five-week Wintersession.

Learning outcomes

Graduates of the MFA program are prepared to:

• express an understanding of contemporary visual art.

• demonstrate the intention, motivation and skills required to pursue and sustain a career as an artist.

• articulate the conceptual framework that informs individual pieces, collections and overall practice.

• contextualize one’s practice within the diverse landscape of global contemporary art practice.

• demonstrate knowledge of intersectional discourse and methods of making.

• understand how to ethically practice within the framework of community engagement.

• write syllabi, formulate a teaching philosophy and think through pedagogical hurdles.

• support, cultivate and participate in high-level intellectual and academic discourse.

• articulate studio and conceptual concerns in writing that makes critical connections between individual works and practices and the larger contexts that inform them.

• demonstrate the ability to acquire new technical and conceptual skill sets through self-education.