MFNA is the first musical release of interdisciplinary artist reid good. With sounds by Detroit-based producer Waajeed, MFNA is a five-song EP that chronicles the artist’s experience as a student in an MFA program at a prestigious school in a wealthy Detroit suburb. The EP begins with an interlude from the 2006 film Art School Confidential and follows with “speak,” an empowering stance and call to action, encouraging marginalized students to take up space within elitist graduate institutions. The EP continues with “cold crit” which platforms the anxiety induced critiques involving colleagues who often lack the cultural acumen to provide productive feedback to artists of color. The EP relies on dry humor and highly visual narratives to depict a typical day in the life of an MFA student, including the parties that transpire on campus in an effort to escape the monotony of discourse. MFNA functions as an audio work, but also as social commentary on the prestige, problems and pastiche of the overwhelmingly white, elite contemporary art world.
I am in graduate school pursuing a Masters in Fine Art (MFA). I live in Detroit and commute 40-min. each way to a very wealthy suburb where my school is located. I am 1 of 4 Black graduate students on campus, and that is…interesting. This EP is the result of me venting (to myself) in my 2003 station wagon on my way to and from school each day. I have cool friends like Waajeed that provided the sounds for this sonic journaling. — reid good
You can learn more about ‘MFNA’ and reid good here.
