Overview of Master of Arts in Community Arts (MACA)
Maryland Institute College of Art
The MA in community arts (MACA) is a 36-credit program spanning two summers and one academic year. Administered through MICA’s nationally recognized Center for Art Education, the MACA program integrates intensive classroom experiences and coursework with extensive field experience. Most fieldwork is conducted in the Baltimore area. Students complete 9 credits in the first summer, 9 credits each semester during the academic year, and 9 credits in the final summer.
Grounded in the principles of social justice, the MA in Community Arts features intensive, ongoing work with children, youth, and adults in community settings.
Students are encouraged to develop their own voice as they simultaneously investigate the relationship of the citizen artist and art to community building. This is accomplished through dialogue with community members, leaders in government and nonprofit organizations, and professional community artists along with the integration of individual production and theory. Real-world experiences are supported by classroom study of community arts theory and practice and work in the studio. These investigations prepare students to develop proposals for and implement their own community arts projects.
During the academic year, students are placed as resident artists with community organizations, where they work with community leaders to: conceive, implement, and manage projects and programs that engage children, youth, and adults in meaningful art experiences; design and implement projects and events that support community initiatives; document and assess the effectiveness of their projects in meeting community interests; gain hands-on experience in fundraising, curriculum planning, and arts management; determine their uniqueness as public/ community artmakers.
The program begins with an introduction to the role the visual arts can play in helping a community articulate its identity and the role community voices and visitors can play in inspiring artistic expression. Seminars prepare students, working in teams, to design visual art projects for children and youth that will be implemented through community organizations in a selected Baltimore community. This first-hand experience of implementing community arts programming will provide grounding for the next level of challenge and opportunity: a yearlong residency in a community organization. In the first summer, students examine their appropriate role, as artists from outside the community who are seeking to work collaboratively in community settings.
During the academic year, students are placed in community organizations, where they serve as full-time resident artists, working with the community to design, implement, or expand art-based educational programming and community events for children, youth, and adults. Students also gain experience in community arts-related work and nonprofit management. Throughout the full-time residency, students receive ongoing support and supervision by MICA faculty.
Sites for the full-time residencies include arts and cultural organizations, such as the education or community outreach arms of faith-based and youth-service organizations, including community and youth centers, after-school programs, and national membership groups; community associations; and educational institutions.
As a complement to the full-time residency, students participate in two seminars that support their work in community and prepare them for their roles as professional community arts practitioners. In the seminars, students prepare case studies, participate in hands-on workshops, and engage in dialogue with community artists; continue to investigate community-based art forms; and make their own community-inspired artwork, including murals, site-specific installations, performance pieces, videos, oral history documentaries, special events, and other collaborative ventures. Documentation of fieldwork and students’ own art will become part of student’s professional portfolio.
In the second summer, students complete their obligations to their host organizations and, as a culmination of the residency, prepare a final Programming, Advocacy, and Sustainability Report, in which students: document their work in the community; engage community members in analysis and assessment of the effectiveness of this work in relation to community goals and needs; and develop a blueprint for ongoing arts projects and initiatives in the host community.
Students continue to make their own community-based artwork and exhibit it in a community venue. A culminating thesis show allows students to share their experiences and to connect their artwork to the interests, identity, and goals of the community.
Coursework in the second summer deepens students’ understanding of art’s place within the context of community; allows students to develop a professional portfolio; and refines professional skills.