Performing and Visual Arts
Visual & Public Art B.A.
The Visual and Public Art major challenges and supports you as you develop enduring skills and perspectives. The curriculum combines studio work and public art processes. Theory and practice cover artistic production, exhibition, ethical interpretation, visual literacy and reciprocal community engagement. Through a rich interdisciplinary curriculum comprised of painting and mural techniques, sculpture and installation, integrated media and photography, arts educations and museum studies, you will graduate prepared to engage in individual and collaborative art methodologies.
Students research, define, analyze, and critically formulate positions on issues in visual and public art from contemporary, historical, ethical, and sociopolitical perspectives.
Students investigate and develop their own individual aesthetics within a critical and reflective framework of personal experiences and perspectives in the context of their work.
Students define and investigate cross-cultural and community issues, problem solve, and respond with community-sensitive work.
Students use collaborative strategies to plan and achieve interdisciplinary arts projects.
Students develop production skills to produce and present public and individual artworks, projects or exhibitions.
Students use critical and evaluative skills to revise work in response to community/audience relevancy, personal expression, and social accountability.
Students develop skills to present and distribute artwork in multiple contexts to engage diverse audiences.
Visual & Public Art Mission & Core Values
The mission of the Visual and Public Art (VPA) faculty is to provide students with a lifelong set of skills that synthesize studio and community arts approaches to artistic production, exhibition, and education. Both individual and collaborative art methodologies are used in the our integrated emphasis through coursework in painting and murals; sculpture, installation and performance art; arts education and museum studies, photography, and media culture.
Combining theory with practice, the program pedagogies focus upon historical and contemporary analysis, community collaboration, artistic production, evaluation and distribution of work with an emphasis on applied research, technical competency, and self-expression. The VPA major equips students with skills of art-making, ethical inquiry, self-reflection, visual literacy, empathy, and reciprocal community engagement to address the critical issues of aesthetics, social justice, and cross-cultural competencies in a multicultural and increasingly interconnected global society.
VPA’s alignment with the principles, goals, core values and ideals described in the CSUMB Vision Statement are evident in its delivery of a high-quality education that serves the diverse people of California, especially the working class, historically undereducated, and low-income populations. The VPA program is committed to multilingual, multicultural, gender-equitable learning, using a curriculum that is student-centered and society serving which focuses on regional needs, specifically those involving both inner-city and isolated rural populations, to meet the needs relevant to communities in the immediate Tri-County region (Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito).