Foundation

Immersion
Foundation is a year-long immersive experience that prepares first-year students to fully and rigorously engage a creative life. Students learn to be resourceful, take chances and explode expectations. They’ll grow through engagement with people who have differing experiences, worldviews, and abilities, as well as learn to constructively critique their own work and that of others.
Students will be introduced to a studio intensive environment where they engage art and design work from perceptual, material, historical and critical perspectives. KCAI’s Foundation year is all about transformation – of the individual and the creative process. It’s a time where students begin to challenge preconceived ideas about art and design, expand their perspectives, learn to collaborate and be active and compassionate members of a creative community, develop a studio work ethic and advance their artistic goals with the solid support of peers and mentors.
“THE FOUNDATION PROGRAM IMMERSED ME IN AN ENVIRONMENT OF OPPORTUNITY OPEN TO EVERYONE'S SELF-EXPRESSION, ALLOWING ME TO RECOGNIZE AND EXPLORE MY OWN EXPERIENCES.”
Skylar BrennanPainting, 2018
Space
From the moment students walk through the Foundation studio doors, they enter a professional arena of art and design. They work in large industrial studio spaces that serve only first year students. These warehouse-like studios can be shaped to support various creative processes, and accommodate different materials and scales of work. They can be transformed into projection spaces, environmental installations, life drawing studios, and fabrication facilities. Every Foundation student has a dedicated work and storage space.
Structure
The Fall semester in Foundation is dedicated to the development of essential, shared, critical vocabularies and skills that define all art and design disciplines. Students learn to transcend literalism, to link verbal, visual and spatial ideas; to experiment and fail–and try again; and to work through many different creative processes. Students work intensively with up to three faculty mentors who offer a variety of challenges in the primary components of the first semester curriculum: perception+observation, visual forces+expanded media and image+form. Students spend four hours a day, four days a week in studio, and have access to their studio spaces during extensive open-studio hours.


The Spring semester in Foundation is divided into three five-week workshops that change from year to year and are designed to complement the Fall Foundation experience. Students are able to choose among these workshops to structure their semester in a way that supports their needs and interests. All workshops share some common threads, including visualizing, imagining, conceptualizing, collaborating, problem-solving, developing material sensitivities, exploring production strategies, and deepening standards for one’s work and work ethic.
The Foundation year includes a Foundation Seminar, which introduces students to alumni, artists and activists from the Kansas City region, the KCAI major departments and faculty, and resources both on and off-campus.
During the Foundation year, students are also oriented to the Central Shop (woodworking), Beals Studios (digital fabrication) and the Print Center (digital design and output).
Experience
The KCAI Foundation Department is distinct from other Foundation programs because it offers:
- Dedicated Foundation studios
- Faculty mentors who are accomplished, practicing artists committed to Foundation
education - A diverse Foundation faculty and student body
- 16 contact hours of studio per week
- A collaborative, inclusive, intensive and experimental environment that supports ambitious
ideas and production - A flexible, interdisciplinary curricular model that supports the individual interests of each
student - Independent work and storage spaces for all Foundation students
- Connection to an extensive alumni network
- Energetic, supportive and talented staff members
Foundation Resources
Access the current Foundation student portal on MyKCAI. Be sure to log in using your KCAI credentials.