Graduate Program in Photography, Video and Related Media at School of Visual Arts

The graduate program in photography, video and related media at SVA brings together traditional and digital lens-based arts. Students in the photography graduate school are encouraged to explore ways they can utilize new technology to engage creative potential and advance in their fields. Request a catalog to learn more about the graduate school of photography, video and related media at SVA.

As an innovative leader in teaching creative lens-based arts, our focus is to challenge traditional assumptions of how the mediums of photography and video are taught. We believe that photography is a universal matrix for the documentation of the world. The complexities of 21st-century cultural relationships-between and amongst photography and the fine arts, communications, sciences and the humanities-require examination and analysis in order to produce original imagery that stems from the exploration of these relationships. It is this quest that this program strives to cultivate.

Being one of the first graduate programs to initiate digital practice, the implications of new technology form the cornerstone of our thinking as we continue to evolve new strategies for engaging creative potential. Our teaching holds that the computer is unlike other forms of expression. The virtual world is an exciting realm of exploration and innovation for the lens-based artist.

We seek to expand the photographic vocabulary and consider the implications that design, video, hypermedia, telecommunications and other electronic components have on the medium. By exposing our students to these potentialities, we open an arena in which to revolutionize and redefine visual practice, supported by a strong foundation of historical discourse, theoretical dialogue and technical assistance. New York City and all that it has to offer as a cultural capital - its communications network, museums and galleries - are part of this exploration.

Our faculty is a reflection of our diversity and of our desire to constantly explore imaginative uses of lens-based arts. They are committed professionals in the world of imagery and are guided by their curiosity and concern for witness, observation and testament, giving students a greater awareness and responsibility for these concerns.

The video track recognizes the arguably dominant position that video, film and television have taken in our society and in our culture. The tools for work in video are new, and we are only beginning to understand their potential. The medium has great value in its potential to communicate in ways that other verbal and visual languages can not. Our curriculum examines the important work that can be achieved in the development of a rich, trustworthy and relevant video language. We begin this new media study and practice with a considered sense of cultural and intellectual exploration.

Our students have many options within the program to pursue their interests, whether in the traditional practice of photography, the moving image or the virtual realm of the circuit. We accept that all of these options are related and interdisciplinary in nature, and international in their reach. Each of us has a voice in the greater realm of our society where creativity is no longer the reserve of the elite. Our multicultural dialogue nourishes creativity and allows for individual talent to flourish. However, we expect every student to be held accountable for making a contribution by bearing witness, giving testament and observing the social issues and concerns of our time.

Charles H. Traub, chair