Contemporary Curating MA

Manchester Metropolitan University

MA/MFA Contemporary Curating explores the notion of curatorial practice in contemporary culture in addressing a number of inter-related fields of creative practice and theoretical approaches and situate them in a historical and critical context. The course explores different kinds of curatorial issues in addressing exhibition-forms and exhibition-making processes and how we conceive of spaces of production and curating as subjects with our integrated research and practice-led approach.

The shifting relationship between artist-institution-curator-critic/writer forms a central element to the course with a special focus on the meaning the culture of curating, in which our perception of creativity has been transformed by curating and the discourses surrounding it. The course also explores the potential of seeing curating as something that can be applied to various forms of knowledge: publications, symposia, events and interventions.

Features and Benefits

• You will be supported to develop student-led projects and encouraged to engage in creative and critical dialogue, collaborative mind-mapping, ideas exchange processes. These practices are integrated by providing students with access to our dedicated Pavement Gallery which acts as a hub for all curatorial activities and a space to generate ideas. Pavement Gallery runs on an associate model to provide MA Contemporary Curating students with the opportunity to develop their practical skills.

• Opportunity to work on The Holden Gallery’s Curatorial Collective programme. The Curatorial Collective is a group of Manchester School of Art students who contribute to shaping and developing The Holden Gallery’s exhibitions and events programme that includes participating in the evaluation and selection process for the annual Plaque Prize. The Holden Gallery has a fully curated exhibitions programme that focuses exclusively on recent developments in international contemporary visual art, exploring thematic ideas through the work of key established and mid-career artists.

• The course offers an international Fellowships opportunity through the Curators of Tomorrow initiative. This unique initiative is to support an understanding of transdisciplinary contexts of the MA/MFA Contemporary Curating programme. This is designed mainly for our current students who are about to engage with the professional practice stage of their studies. Selected participants of the Curators of Tomorrow collaboration are given the opportunity to live and work for the period of one month in one of the Q21 studios at MuseumsQuartier Wien in Vienna.

• You will benefit from the rich programme of events which includes Curator talks and seminars from a range of galleries and programmes, such as Liverpool Biennial, Manchester Art Gallery, Open Eye, Tate Liverpool, The Whitworth Gallery and more.

Accredited by the Royal Society of Biology for the purpose of meeting, in part, the academic and experience requirement of membership and Chartered Biologist (CBiol).

Accredited by the Royal Society of Biology for the purpose of meeting, in part, the academic and experience requirement of membership and Chartered Biologist (CBiol).