Master of Fine Arts + Master Science in Historic Preservation

The Master of Fine Arts + Master of Science in Historic Preservation dual-degree acknowledges that there are many alignments that currently exist between historic preservation and fine arts. These alignments include an interest in spatial visualization processes and tools, cognitive and physical mapping processes and tools, methods of developing database schemas and taxonomies, thinking regarding issues of temporality, including diachronic and synchronic approaches to time, and an interest in notions of Rieglian and other historicist conceptions and principles of values-based conservation, which include the study of monumental forms and public art. Much contemporary art practice is framed around an "ethnographic turn" wherein contemporary artists adopt anthropological and other "scientific" approaches in the production of their art, converting art into a social practice contingent on social science research and other streams of knowledge production. The same can be said of historical preservation, which as a practice has increasingly sought out and adopted creative and innovative approaches to the thinking of the complex system of localities and sites with its multiple political, social, cultural and architectural histories.

This three-year program is ideal for students who are interested in art as a function of civic political discourse and/or historic preservation students interested in new creative methods of unpacking meaning from the built environment. It is especially geared towards students interested in topics such as monumentality, conceptions of time and space as elements in a field of values, and the study of memory and processes of memorialization. Upon graduation, students in this dual-degree program can expect to embody an artmaking practice that is grounded in historic and cultural sites with their multiple political, social, cultural, and architectural histories.

A total of 26 CUs are required for the MFA/HSPV dual-degree. The dual-degree is STEM-designated, due to HSPV's STEM designation.