Image: Roneld Lores, MFA ’22
STUDIO VISITS + CRITIQUES
GUEST CRITICS
During each intensive summer residency, we host innovative thinkers, gallerists, curators and artists to the MFA Low-Residency studios to interact with our students. These one-on-one critiques throughout the summer introduce a diverse range of voices, out of which our students can think about their work newly, in the context of contemporary practice and discourse. Studio visits are scheduled by the graduate programs office, please reach out to gradprogram@massart.edu with questions.
Current Students: Please complete the survey below to rank your choices of visiting critics for the Summer 2025 residency. You will be assigned to studio visit slots after your survey response is recorded and reviewed. Please complete the survey by Thursday, July 3.
STUDIO VISITS ARE APPROXIMATELY 25 MINUTES EACH. Students and critics should be conscious of travel time where applicable.
A member of the staff will escort each visiting critic to their first studio visit of the day. Participating students should plan to meet the visiting critics at the previous studio location, a few minutes before the start of their own visit.
SUMMER 2025 VISITING CRITICS AND PARTICIPATING FACULTY
Zoila Andrea Coc-Chang is a Chinese-Guatemalan mixed-media artist and educator from Miami. Her work interrogates the complexities and intimacies between and within Asia and the Americas to not only reveal and work through the nuances of where and when these geographies collide, but in hope of forging new possibilities for existing beyond histories of struggle and territorially-bounded cultural representations.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including: 193 Gallery (Paris, FR and Venice, IT), ArtNexus Space (Miami, FL), WhiteBox (New York, NY), Jamestown Art Center (Jamestown, RI), XXIII Bienal de Arte Paiz Guatemala (GUA), The Arsenal at Central Park (New York, NY), Jeffrey Deitch (New York, NY), Lycoming College Art Gallery (Williamstown, PA), Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MA), the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown Boston (MA) and more.
STUDIO VISITS AUGUST 1 | keynote speaker*
Thatiana Oliveira is a Brasilian multidisciplinary artist, curator and educator. Current projects include co-founding Snake House VT, a non-profit arts collaborative, establishing Gilfeather an artists’ critique and discussion group, as well as creating ex-girlfriend a ‘zine/artist-book and curatorial adventure. Oliveira holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MFA from Columbia College Chicago, a curatorial internship fellow from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and was a resident at the International School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture Umbria, at the Artists’ Cooperative Residency & Exhibitions (ACRE), and at the Vermont Studio Center. Oliveira has continually worked in higher education as a teacher and administrator at Syracuse University, Champlain College, Vermont College of Fine Arts and presently at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Thatiana seeks to be a conscientious rabble rouser, a dedicated dance machine, and always a friend to cats.
STUDIO VISITS JULY 10
Gabo Camnitzer is an artist and educator working across experimental pedagogy, installation, and video. Camnitzer’s work revolves around questions of education and knowledge exchange, often focusing on childhood to examine the societal structures that surround and shape subjectivity. Camnitzer is Associate Professor of Art Education and Director of the Saturday Studios Program for children at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Massachusetts. He has previously held teaching positions at UMass Dartmouth, Columbia University, Valand Academy, Sweden, as well as public elementary schools in New York City. He has presented projects at venues such as Creative Time, New York, Pivô, São Paulo; PPOW, New York; Queens Museum, New York; Konsthall C, Stockholm; Momentum Biennale, Moss, Norway; Hacer Noche, Oaxaca; Kunstsaele, Berlin; GfZK, Leipzig; Artists Space, New York; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; Gertrude Contemporary Art Center, Melbourne; Museo Blanes, Montevideo, Uruguay. He received his MFA from Valand Academy, Gothenburg, Sweden, and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, USA. He sits on the editorial board of the Swedish Art Journal, Paletten.
STUDIO VISITS JULY 10
Samantha Fields is drawn to the materials and processes that have historically lived outside of an “Art” context, she strives to make work that can live in and speak to the different worlds of ‘high’ and ‘low.’ “I make–slowly–with/through craft. Making slowly is a personal act of resistance against the fast-paced, multi-tasking, product-driven world in which I find myself.” As a multimedia artist, Samantha engages with these processes as a survival mechanism, aesthetic, and a conceptual strategy. Through these modes of making, she is able to explore different social constructs associated with the decorative: gender, class, professional/hobbyist, and the hierarchical categories of taste and morality. Sam received her MFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and her undergraduate degree from Massachusetts College of Art; and is currently a part time lecturer at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston at Tufts University.
STUDIO VISITS JULY 10
A native of Chicago and Milwaukee, Tyanna J. Buie earned her BA from Western Illinois University and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has participated in residencies at the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, LA, Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, Project 1612 AIR, Morton, IL, and Hotel Pupik, Schrattenberg, Austria.
Her accolades include the 2012 Mary L. Nohl Fellowship, the Love of Humanity Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the 2015 Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant, the 2019 Kresge Artist Fellowship, the 2019/2020 Grant Wood Fellowship, the 2020 Fellowship.art award, and the 2023 Ruth Arts/Mary L. Nohl Alumni Award. Buie has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions at Freeport Art Museum, Freeport, IL, South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN, The Alice Wilds, Milwaukee, WI, Materia Gallery, Detroit, MI, and cam.contemporarie Gallery, Chicago, IL.
STUDIO VISITS JULY 17
LaiSun Keane (she/her) has been involved in the Boston art scene since 2015, at first volunteering and working from junior level for non-profits and art galleries. She then became a co-owner of a gallery for two years before starting her own in April 2020. Her eponymous gallery located in South End’s SoWa Art District focuses on showcasing non-mainstream voices and are thematic and narrative based. Besides in person and online exhibitions, her gallery has participated in Art Fairs in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. LaiSun received her Bachelor of Art Theory from University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia.
STUDIO VISITS JULY 18 (*Thesis Students only, MassArt x SoWa Gallery)
Kelly Knight (she/her) is a multimedia artist based in Providence, RI. She earned her MFA in 3D Fibers from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, her BA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, and did her BFA studies in the Fibers program at Swain School of Design/UMass Dartmouth. She shows regularly in solo and group shows, and her work is in numerous private collections. She is the Interdisciplinary Low Residency MFA Program Director and Assistant Professor at MassArt.
STUDIO VISITS JULY 24
Mariah Doren has a Doctorate in the College Teaching of Art and Design from Columbia University, an MFA in photography from Pratt Institute, and a BA in Architecture and Urban Studies from Bryn Mawr College. She is the Dean of Graduate and Continuing Education at MassArt. Her work is a mix of studio practice, research, and teaching, carefully woven and intermixed such that each component feeds and supports the others. Mariah has a studio practice based in photography that includes collage work combining printmaking, drawing, and photographs that have been part of recent exhibitions at the New Britain Museum of American Art and Site Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Mariah’s writing centers on teaching, most recently with a co-authored book titled Let’s Talk about Critique: Reimagining Art and Design Education (Intellect Press/University of Chicago-2023) and “Assessment as Learning” in Introduction to Design Education: Theory, Research, and Practical Applications for Educators by Steven Faerm (Rutledge 2022).
STUDIO VISITS JULY 28