Admissions
Location
Virtual
Contact
Department of Art
(607) 255-6730
Related Links
Overview
Cornell University’s low-residency Image Text M.F.A. is a unique program focused on the intersection of writing and visual art.
Learn about the M.F.A. in Image Text program at Cornell University. Applications are now being accepted for the summer of 2026. Codirectors Nicholas Muellner and Catherine Taylor, former faculty guest speakers, and current students will give a short presentation of the goals and structure of the program, followed by a Q&A session.
We welcome applicants with backgrounds in writing, photography, film/video, digital and studio arts practices, and artists working across these forms and disciplines. Experience in both text and image-making is not required, but applicants must submit a portfolio that demonstrates sustained work in at least one of these areas, if not both.
Students in our exploratory, flexible, and innovative program will work directly with faculty and visiting artists during three annual month-long summer sessions in Ithaca, New York, and during two annual week-long spring sessions.
Please register to attend.
Speakers
Nicholas Muellner, Senior Lecturer; Codirector, M.F.A. in Image Text and ITI Press
Nicholas Muellner is a Los Angeles-based artist and writer. His five published books include Lacuna Park: Essays and Other Adventures in Photography, The Amnesia Pavilions, and In Most Tides an Island, which was shortlisted for the Aperture/Paris Photo Photobook Award and selected as an outstanding book of the year by Artforum. In addition to solo exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe, his writings have been published by MACK, Aperture, Radius, Triple Canopy, Routledge, and others. Muellner has performed slide lectures internationally, including at MoMA P.S.1, the Carnegie Museum, The Photographers Gallery, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. His work has been supported by the 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography, the John Gutmann Fellowship, and residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo Colonies, among others. Muellner received a B.A. in comparative literature from Yale University and an M.F.A. from Temple University. He is a founding codirector of the Image Text M.F.A. and ITI Press.
Catherine Taylor, Senior Lecturer; Codirector, M.F.A. in Image Text and ITI Press
Catherine Taylor is the author of Image Text Music, a collection of essays on visual culture; You, Me, and the Violence; and Apart, a mixed-genre memoir and political history that combines prose, poetry, cultural theory, and found texts from South African archives. Her first book, Giving Birth: A Journey Into the World of Mothers and Midwives (Penguin Putnam), won the Lamaze International Birth Advocate Award. Her essays, poetry, and reviews have appeared in the Seneca Review, The Colorado Review, Witness, The Believer, and elsewhere, and she is a founding editor of Essay Press, an independent press dedicated to publishing innovative essays in book form. Taylor was a cofounder and producer of The Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and she has received residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, Djerassi, the Millay Colony, and others. Taylor received her Ph.D. from Duke University. Taylor is a founding codirector of the Image Text M.F.A. and ITI Press.
