Master of Fine Arts in Print Media & Photography
Explore Recent Work of our MFA Community and Learn More About Print, Media & Photography
Contemporary, Interdisciplinary, and Honed to Your Needs
Looking for a Master of Fine Arts studio program with both depth of professional focus and interdisciplinary opportunities? Join the graduate Print Media & Photography program at Boston University School of Visual Arts (BU SVA) where photography and printmaking meet within an innovative contemporary studio program. In proximity to four other leading MFA degrees, professional resources, and exhibition opportunities, BU’s MFA in Print Media & Photography is an ideal incubator for artists who engage in multiple print-based studio disciplines, work with sequential images, or with image and word relationships.
This MFA has few peers and uniquely prepares students technically, aesthetically, and professionally for careers as working artists, future faculty in higher education who need to be able to teach in a range of media, and/or to work in related collaborative professional studios. Students gain experience working interdisciplinary while deeply engaging in the practice and study of printmaking and photography.
The program makes use of the rich opportunities available in a major research university by encouraging student collaborations that connect the arts with the humanities or sciences. You will be exposed to a range of perspectives, and gain a command of making and understanding images in the 21st century.
An inside look at the MFA in Print Media and Photography.
The MFA in Print Media & Photography is Experienced-Based
Students work closely in a focused graduate cohort with leading faculty across printmaking and photography, gaining professional skills, critical thinking, and strong innovative artistic growth. The program provides ample opportunity to travel and engage with the professional world, including trips to the Print Fair in New York and optional travel abroad to meet professionals in the global print and photography fields. The program’s most recent professional partnership with print studios in Belgium offers an excellent study abroad opportunity.
Students also have the opportunity to work with museums and galleries in the Boston area such as the Griffin Museum of Photography. On campus, the BU Libraries includes the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center’s source materials such as an extensive artist book collection, photography and other important archival materials.
Other direct experiential learning and important professional contacts include:
- Opportunities to serve as teaching assistants within SVA.
- International study tours that combine print and photography, and draw from faculty and University contacts in China, Belgium, Italy and India.
- The creation of a new course with projects that connect to professional opportunities in Boston and globally.
Gain Professional Practice and Skills You Need to Innovate Across Media
Imagery is the driving force in modern communication. The MFA in Print Media & Photography will teach you to:
- See and think more critically about your work, tools, and materials.
- Deeply engage in and master technical training in printmaking and photography to support creative growth.
- Develop a distinct personal vision evident in studio work.
- Gain a command of appropriate professional level studio protocols and professional practice in making and understanding images in the 21st century.
- Understand the history of the photography and print form in Western and other civilizations.
- Communicate and achieve a coherent set of artistic/intellectual goals as an independent professional.
- Communicate persuasively in spoken and written language about your own and others’ artwork.
Teaching Assistantships with BFA and BA courses in art help you gain experience teaching, help fund your living expenses, and prepare you for a teaching career in higher education at a time when universities are expanding cross-disciplinary and multi-modal approaches.
Access to Graduate Student Resources
MFA Print Media & Photography students have 24 hour access to a personal work space, and access to multiple focused-use studios for photography and printmaking. Additional on-campus resources include the Engineering and Product Innovation Center (EPIC) and its 3D printers, lasers, and scanners. With these tools, students learn to expand the boundaries of multiplicity and utilize advanced technologies in the creation, dissemination, and documentation of work. MFA in Print Media & Photography students are supported by the following College of Fine Arts and SVA resources:
- Multiple digital labs with current Adobe software dedicated to printmaking and photography.
- Black and white darkrooms that support 35 mm to large format printing and a range of photography courses from traditional processes to experimental classes like Photolab.
- 35 mm and large format film cameras and digital medium format equipment for graduate student use only as well as lighting kits and studio access.
- A three-color RISO printer with large array of color drums for limitless color potential.
- Outstanding newer printmaking studios supporting all print media (both traditional and “green”).
- Access to courses in printmaking along with state-of-the-art print facilities that include lithography, etching, relief, digital printmaking, and silkscreen.
- Book Arts classes and facilities including graphic design courses, and graduate typography classes.
- Proximity to a large cohort of nearly 100 graduate students across art education, painting, sculpture, graphic design, and visual narrative.
- The School of Visual Arts Research & Resource Library; and, Boston University Libraries, including the African American Library, the Krasker Film/Video Library, the Mugar Memorial Library, the Music Library, and the The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, which captures and documents history by collecting the manuscripts from individuals who play a significant part in the fields of journalism, poetry, literature and criticism, dance, music, theater, film, television, and political and religious movements.
- The Build Lab IDG Capital Student Innovation Center is home to people, programs, and collaboration space that helps all BU students and recent alumni transform their ideas into something real and develop innovation skills, an entrepreneurial mindset, and a strong community along the way.
- 3D printers, lasers, and high-powered scanners at the Engineering and Product Innovation Center (EPIC) at BU’s College of Engineering.
- The Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, whose mission it is to convene researchers and practitioners from various disciplines to figure out novel and practical ways to understand, explain, and solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity and injustice.
Rankings
Boston University is an internationally respected university with a reputation for excellence and extensive research.
Top 100 national universities (U.S. News & World Report college rankings)
Top 20 most innovative schools (U.S. News & World Report college rankings)
Top 100 graduate universities (QS Quacquarelli Symonds rankings)
Ranked #17 in Top 50 Best Colleges in Big Cities (Newsweek)
Ranked #25 for Best Value for academic excellence and economic value (U.S. News & World Report college rankings)
The Center for Measuring University Performance places Boston University among the top 50 research universities in the nation
Accreditation
Boston University is regionally accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE).
NASAD ACCREDITED
Boston University holds accreditation by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), an organization of schools, conservatories, colleges, and universities with approximately 363 accredited institutional members.
Affiliated Faculty
Lynne Allen
Professor of Art, Department of Printmaking
Deborah Cornell
Associate Professor of Art, Department of Printmaking
Toni Pepe
Assistant Professor of Art, Department of Photography
Join a Strong Graduate and Alumni Community
You’ll also have access to BU’s worldwide network of alumni and connections to professions to help you build your career.
The development of partnerships and professional communities within, between, and beyond BU programs is a strength and priority of the SVA graduate programs as a whole. Outreach and a vibrant intellectual and artistic ecosystem are brought into being through the following platforms for knowledge-sharing, and by important partners who help support graduate research, community, and new forms of production and thinking.
- Tuesday Night Lecture Series
- Contemporary Perspectives Lecture Series
- Boston University Art Galleries
- Piano Craft Gallery
- MFA field trips
- Open Studios
- Visual Arts Research & Resource Library
- Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center and BU Libraries
- Multiple Formats Art Book Fair and symposium
- The Center for Antiracist Research
- The Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground
- Professional development programming hosted by School of Visual Arts
- BU Spark! (Center for Data Science)
- Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC)
- BUild Lab
- AIGA
- BU Medical Anatomy Lab
CFA Print Media & Photography Faculty Profile
Toni PepeAssistant Professor of Art
Chair, Department of Photography
Toni Pepe is chair and assistant professor of photography at Boston University. She received her MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology and an MLA in visual culture from Boston University. Her photographs and installation work explore the construction of identity, specifically the icon of the mother. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally including at the Center for Photography at Woodstock and the Wege durch das Land, Music & Literary Festival. Pepe was a finalist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship, a Critical Mass top 50, a Review Santa Fe 100, and was most recently awarded an Artist Trust Grant. Her work is in the permanent collections at the Danforth Art Museum, the Magenta Foundation, as well as many private collections.