Fieldwork gives Writing students, both BFA and MFA, the flexibility to design their own path outside the classroom—launching a literary journal, organizing a reading series, partnering with a local arts organization, and so many other variations. It’s a space for self-directed projects and creative collaborations, where students can move off the page and into hands-on experience creating the work and world they hope to see. Check out what past students have done!
During my time at Pratt, I signed ten novels across three publishing houses, including seven books that had yet to be written. During my fieldwork course, I was given the time and support to work under deadlines to write and edit the books for these contracts. The Pratt writing department was an extremely supportive environment, even helping me host a release event for my debut novel, Demon Scout, and supporting me as a vendor at the Brooklyn Book Festival and a panelist at GeekGirlCon.
Charleigh Frederick Independent Genre Publishing (Fieldwork), 2022
Understanding practical publishing as a freelance writer. Applying Gender and Medieval Imagination to creative practice. Exploring various art practices through exhibitions and performances for engagement within the community of study.
Sam Tuck Publishing in Medieval Imagination, 2026
I directed interviews focusing on offering specific tips and tricks for students in several departments at Pratt. These interviews featured prominent professors recommended by the head of each department to give detailed and honest answers. The interviews will be posted on Pratt’s social media, offering students a helpful resource for bettering their work practice– one they can come back to if needed.
Spade Stokes Departmental Interview Series, 2026
I created a magazine issue centered on the theme of pregnancy. I called for submissions, edited and organized them, learned InDesign to format the layouts, and published it on Mother’s Day.
Elisa Edgar Totally Fem : The Pregnant Issue, 2026
This project began with an encounter at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Cameroonian labor objects that once existed as functional and lived tools were preserved behind glass and reframed as art. The project examines museums as sites that actively reshape meaning, transforming labor into heritage and community knowledge into institutional authority while creating distance between people and the objects that once moved through everyday life. Focusing on blackness, it asks how women’s labor in West African contexts becomes erased within museum spaces, and how recognition and cultural value are shaped through display.
Fleuirianne Niboh West African Art and the Museum, 2026
For this fieldwork project, my task was to create a short conceptual film piece inspired by my thesis project, which is a feature length film. This project included searching for resources, both monetary and labor. This piece would be presented alongside a film pitch deck presentation describing my project and its influences.
Brandon Michael Pigott Jr Simon and Balta Are Just Friends, 2026
[Partnering] with two students from the creative arts therapy department, I hosted an event encouraging participants to write a letter… to themselves, someone else[,] or with an imaginary recipient in mind… with the intention of releasing an emotion… knowing the addressee did not ever have to read it[,] if they didn’t want them to. [Participants] were prompted to either keep the letter intact or transform it using black out poetry, collage, paint, submerging it in ink, [or] shredding it… [We also had] a large canvas where people could add their transformed letter… to a collective collage. The event took place during finals as a therapeutic stress relieving activity. I was surprised by the amount of people who still stopped and engaged… [and] that a lot of people left us with their letter to transform for them.
Alexandra Zernik Letters Never Sent, 2025
I took images from bathroom graffiti to examine [the] relationship of communal language in the most private of public spaces… It is the only public space where someone can be alone and in doing so they can write, reply, or graffiti the space. I have created a living [online] database where people are allowed to reach out and be a part of the database by submitting their own writing, photos, [and] thoughts… [My assumption] was that the bathroom was a bit negligible, but it is also the grounds for political dispute, declaration, as well as the things we normally do in a bathroom allowing for writing to be in this public space without the need to be credited or have a name attached to it.
Annie McGowan PUBLIC/PRIVATE, 2025
I contacted a number of Italians, friends with Italian friends, and staff at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in hopes of conducting interviews with Italians about the Holocaust and its legacy in Italy. I drafted a series of questions in English and Italian that focus on the legacy of the Holocaust, public education about it, and the modern Italian relationship to it. [My] result today is one completed interview, many emails finally building toward a second interview, and a third potential subject I think I can eventually cultivate into an interview… I expected some people to respond to the idea of being interviewed with discomfort. However, I did not expect the majority of people to respond this way.
Arianna Geneson La vita prima e dopo (Life before and after), 2025
I drew inspiration from my own thesis novel to seek out an island in New York City which implemented Scandinavian learning and play principles for children. I found this at The Yard by play:ground NYC on Governor’s Island, a non-profit organization which promotes playwork, a global tradition of children’s play. I executed a field day where I visited the island and interviewed a staff member… I found evidence of gentrification[] which threatens the existence of their project and community space… [My] question then became[:] how [are they] working to survive this[?]
Hedda Treider Bonesmo Playwork: How a Junkyard for Children Is Defying the Gentrification of Governors Island, 2025
I contacted a number of Italians, friends with Italian friends, and staff at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in hopes of conducting interviews with Italians about the Holocaust and its legacy in Italy. I drafted a series of questions in English and Italian that focus on the legacy of the Holocaust, public education about it, and the modern Italian relationship to it. [My] result today is one completed interview, many emails finally building toward a second interview, and a third potential subject I think I can eventually cultivate into an interview… I expected some people to respond to the idea of being interviewed with discomfort. However, I did not expect the majority of people to respond this way.
Mackenzie Robin Krestul Exploring La Mama, 2025
Page Poem is a collaborative, site-responsive social experiment that invites strangers and community members at Pratt to co-author a physical, roaming book through public acts of anonymous exchange and creative reflection. The project centers around a… empty book, left in various public locations within Pratt’s campus, with an invitation to[:] contribute a page[,] photograph its new placement, send the photo to a designated phone number, and leave the book for someone else to find… [T]he greatest challenge of this project was accepting that the community might reject the book, or that the experiment would not work… it was a process of letting go of any sense of control. This proved to be a worthy lesson, and it honestly felt kind of freeing
Maya Sol Levy Page Poem: A Community Book, 2025
In July 2025, I conducted a series of field visits and observations of religious rituals in Hangzhou, Pujiang, [and] Longquan, Zhejiang Province, China[:] [I] observed a spirit-medium possession ritual… documented [a] ritual for the deliverance of an unborn spirit… met with the abbot of Bailin Temple… to discuss spirit mediums, reincarnation in Buddhism, and ideas surrounding karma… [and] observed and documented a birthday celebration ritual for the deity Erlang Shen. [My question was:] What is the world made of? Does anything exist beyond the visible world?… I’ve decided to live more kindly and take each day as it comes.
