independent study program

The Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program (“ISP”) is an experimental study community dedicated to fostering critical thinking, cross-disciplinary scholarship and writing, and multimedia artistic practices. The ISP cultivates a rigorous intellectual environment where Participants are encouraged to engage deeply with contemporary issues through extended conversation and collaboration. Through seminars, reading groups, workshops, screenings, performances, poetry readings, studio visits, and an array of collaborative endeavors, the program nurtures and challenges the creative processes of artists, curators, and scholars who are committed to innovative, sustainable, and activist practices.

About The Program

The Independent Study Program (ISP) consists of three interrelated parts: Studio Program, Critical Studies Program, and Curatorial Program. The ISP provides a setting within which students pursuing art practice, curatorial work, art historical scholarship, and critical writing engage in ongoing discussions and debates that examine the historical, social, and intellectual conditions of artistic production. The program encourages the theoretical and critical study of artistic practices. The ISP is a non-degree granting tuition free program.

Each year fifteen individuals are selected to participate in the Studio Program, four in the Curatorial Program, and six in the Critical Studies Program, for a total cohort of twenty-five. Curatorial and critical studies participants are designated as Helena Rubinstein Fellows in recognition of the substantial support provided to the program by the Helena Rubinstein Foundation and Studio participants are Weitzen Family Fellows in acknowledgment of the one-time relocation stipend generously provided by the Weitzen family.

Program Schedule

The ISP Program runs from the last week of September to the end of May, with three breaks for holidays (Thanksgiving, Winter Break, and Spring Break). Seminars are held twice per week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2pm-5pm. Community events are held on Fridays from 10am-6pm. Participants agree to keep active presence at the ISP and to ongoing participation in these events.

ISP Facility

Each of the three programs at ISP has a dedicated workspace within the facility. Studio participants are provided with individual, modest studio spaces on the first floor, offering a private environment for focused work. On the second floor, there is a shared curatorial room for all four curators to collaborate and develop their projects. The second floor also houses the Critical Studies room, where each participant has a desk for quiet individual research, reading, and writing. These tailored workspaces are designed to support the unique needs of each program while fostering a collaborative and dynamic atmosphere of daily exchange and experimentaton.