Department of Visual and Public Art
Core Values
The mission of the Visual and Public Art (VPA) Department 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 VPA department’s 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).
Learn about VPA's Major Learning Outcomes (MLO's).
