The Sculpture Area at the University of Florida supports an experimental and transdisciplinary approach to studio art based on the conception of sculpture as a practice that has expanded its field of influence to incorporate the realms of installation, video, and performance art. Students are encouraged to consider the physical manifestation of artworks as well as their specific cultural contexts of production, display, and distribution as central to their interpretation.

Offering a rigorous formal training in metals, casting and wood sculptural techniques, the undergraduate classes are designed to encourage independent thinking as well as theoretical and art historical investigation. At the 3000 level students further develop their technical skills in various media through the conceptual investigation of material, form and space. In the 4000 level courses students develop their individual visions while engaged in the study of post-war art movements and the mediums of installation, performance, video, and land art.

The graduate program involves access to a wide range of courses in other art studio areas, art history and critical theory, film theory, museum studies, art law, and arts administration. Within the Sculpture Area, instruction is carried out by regular individual meetings with graduate faculty, visiting artists and scholars. In addition, students participate in the Sculpture Graduate Seminar that provides a forum for the group critique of individual projects and the research of topics related to the practice of contemporary sculpture through a broad range of theories relevant to the contemporary art world . The topics may include: the role of design in contemporary culture, architecture and urbanism, public art, site specificity, activism in art, feminist art practices, materiality, phenomenology, and the politics of ecology.