Master of Fine Arts
Clockwise from top: Kajill Aujla, Deepali Raiththa, Rosalina Libertad Cerritos.
Change practice. Change perspective. Change perceptions.
When you choose Emily Carr University for your Master of Fine Arts (MFA), you choose material exploration. You choose to put yourself, your career and your people first by choosing the best delivery mode for you.
Program basics
Enhance your artistic practice and critical inquiry with our two-year MFA programs, featuring innovative and flexible pathways. Immerse yourself in contemporary art production through an interdisciplinary curriculum that bridges methods and ideas in a supportive and challenging environment. Both program options culminate in a thesis project, allowing you to refine your creative voice and expand your practice.
Choose between a full-residency option for year-round engagement on campus and two low-residency programs that combine online learning with on-campus intensives:
Full Residency MFA
Our two-year full-residency MFA degree offers a concentrated on-campus academic experience, with year-round access to studios, facilities, and research centres. The curriculum integrates coursework, creative research, material exploration and a thesis project. All elements are grounded in a dynamic, critique-based environment that encourages risk-taking and the growth of material processes and critical perspectives.
Students focus on studio practice development and coursework during the fall and spring terms, emphasizing material exploration and theoretical frameworks. In the summer term, they develop an independent thesis project that encompasses practical and written components.
Our program also includes research seminars, studio classes, public exhibitions, and visits from renowned artists and curators, enriching students' practice and professional development.
Low Residency MFA
Our two-year, full-time, low-residency MFA stream allows students to delve into research and practice in their chosen fine arts or media arts practice independently and under faculty mentorship. Students attend online courses delivered synchronously during fall and spring terms and a month-long on-campus residency in the summer term.
Designed to provide the best of both worlds, students leverage remote learning technologies from their home communities and focus on a studio practice during the summer residency. This allows them to deepen their creative research and material exploration in Vancouver in a supportive and creative community of artists.
There are many opportunities for low-residency students to connect with their full-residency peers and the wider ECU community by participating in year-round professional development activities and other programming.
New! Low Residency MFA: Critical Ecological Practices
Our new, first-of-its-kind, two-year MFA Low-Residency: Critical Ecological Practices cohort brings together artists and creative practitioners committed to examining some of the most pressing questions of our time through exploratory, collaborative, and research-driven art practices.
Critical ecological practice calls for a profound cultural transformation that challenges anthropocentric ways of thinking, embracing critical reflection and nurturing models of kinship built on empathy, compassion, and mutual reciprocity with the more-than-human world.
This low-residency model combines the flexibility of online learning with an immersive, month-long residency each summer. Students converge in Vancouver during these residencies to embark on independent and collaborative research, cultivate new connections, and access Emily Carr University’s world-class facilities.
Explore our curriculum.
Want to learn more about the specifics of our MFA program? You can Explore our detailed course descriptions and curriculum pathways.
“The opportunity to be a graduate student at Emily Carr not only helped me realize further my potential as an artist, but it also gave me the best community of friends and peers along the way. Being a part of such a diverse cohort of artists expanded my perspectives of the potential that visual art has and has inspired me in ways beyond words. I am thankful to have been among such wonderful individuals and artists in my cohort and to learn from such wonderful faculty and researchers as well.”
Kajill Auijla, MFA 2021
Stories from Our MFA Community
"As a multidisciplinary artist, being able to try new materials and methods is an essential part of my praxis. I cannot think of a space or time that better allowed for that than at Emily Carr University. With access to a multitude of studios and workshops, I am able to create freely and organically, while being supported by faculty, staff and colleagues who genuinely care for my success."
Our Studios + Facilities
Above: MFA students in their personal studios. Below: MFA candidate prOphecy sun in the Motion Capture Studio.
Graduate programs at Emily Carr University have a strong focus on studio practice with rigorous individual and group critiques that aim to balance the integration of theory, practice, and production.
As a graduate student, you will have your own studio space at your disposal throughout the program, and to shared, dedicated work areas. Graduate students work with Technical Services Coordinators who help with their various studio needs.
A wealth of resources and integrated studios, labs, and workshops housing a wide range of media, analogue and new digital technologies will be available to you. Find detailed descriptions of our shops and studios on our website.