Mindful of
the past, We contemplate
and create a better future
We inspire rigorous paths of study through individual expression and collaboration across many disciplines of art, art history, and design. Through education and encouragement of broad dialogue within arts, we promote positive and sustainable change in our global community.
Art and Design at MSU
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Master of Fine Arts
Our MFA program seeks to expand our empathic understanding, cultivate the voices of underserved populations and ideas, and mitigate and critique damage done to ecologies, marginalized cultures, and the environment brought about by several centuries of colonialist pursuits.
new program studies race through art
We have established a Critical Race Studies Residency Program that will bring an Artist-in-Residence and a Designer-in-Residence to campus to enrich the life of student experiences and the greater community by facilitating practices of inclusion through art and design as part of the Department of Art, Art History, and Design.
SPARTAN'S JOURNEY OF DETERMINATION
Born with no hands and missing her big toe along with the supporting bones on each foot, Kathryn Bailey, a 24-year-old Studio Art graduating senior hasn’t allowed her quadrilateral limb deficiency to keep her from living a “normal” life and now is about to graduate with a degree in Studio Art and a concentration in Painting and Graphic Design.
MFA in Art, Art History, and Design
The Master of Fine Art program seeks highly motivated students who have the artistic and scholarly vision to guide us into equitable, sustainable, and creative futures. We encourage new and rigorous forms of artistic expression and design innovation that transcend typical constraints to make meaningful contributions to the world. A 100% funded program, your able to customize your student experience at one of the leading research institutions in the world.
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Rebecca dekuiper
Apparel and Textile Design Alumna
Lead Designer, American Girl
featured News
Student-Built Mobile Microgalleries Add New Public Art to East Lansing
Two new microgalleries from Michigan State University’s Department of Art, Art History, and Design (AAHD) will be featured at the 2026 East Lansing Art Festival on May 16 and 17, completing a three-part public art project designed and created by MSU students during the 2025-2026 academic year. The two new microgalleries are freestanding, mobile galleries designed to move between multiple sites and events. They will join the Honeycomb Gallery, which was unveiled in December 2025 in the alleyway beside (SCENE) Metrospace, in showcasing work created by MSU students for the MSU campus and East Lansing community. During the 2026 East Lansing Art Festival on May 16 and 17, the mobile microgalleries
Where the Photos Belong: How a Ghana-MSU Partnership Brought the Willis Bell Archive to Life
More than 40,000 photographs documenting Ghana’s first decades after independence have been restored, digitized, and returned to public view through a partnership between Ghana’s Mmofra Foundation and Michigan State University — a collaboration designed not only to preserve history, but to keep it rooted in the community where it was created. The Willis Bell Photographic Archive, spanning roughly from 1957 to 1978, stands among the most complete surviving visual records of post-independence Ghana. Rather than removing the collection abroad, the project centered local stewardship in Accra, Ghana, where the archive was made and has remained for decades on the
Yeroham Ashagre: Winner of the 2026 MFA Prize
Yeroham Ashagre is the 2026 Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Prize recipient, capping three years of intensive study as an MFA student in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design at Michigan State University. Ashagre received the MFA Prize for his thesis exhibition, “Womb of Tomb,” that is part of the 2026 MFA Exhibition on view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum through May 17, 2026.