Curatorial Practice MA

Why study MA Curatorial Practice at University College Falmouth?

Our postgraduate Curatorial Practice course collaborates with three main partners - Tate St Ives, Newlyn Art Gallery & the Exchange, and ProjectBase - to provide opportunities for you to develop the critical and practical skills required for professional curating in the field of international contemporary art. Through the partners you will experience the curatorial role in the context of a national museum, a publicly funded gallery and a visual arts agency.

Tell me more about the MA Curatorial Practice course

 MA Curatorial Practice award information form (87.89 KB)

The course puts ongoing dialogue with artists and exploration of art-world structures at the heart of the learning process. It allows you to test ideas in real situations, encouraging the development of a curatorial position through practice.

Working closely with staff at the partner organisations and other art-world professionals, the course provides a context in which to develop and critique curatorial practice, and to establish networks and contacts relevant to your individual areas of interest.

Building your theoretical knowledge and practical experience you'll graduate with an in-depth knowledge of art world structures and processes, ready to engage effectively in an increasingly diverse and challenging range of curatorial opportunities.

Course structure

This is a one year full-time course, taught over a 45 week period, beginning in October, ending in September. It is structured over three 15-week study blocks or terms.

The first study block is designed to help you develop research and professional skills in relation your own curatorial ideas. MA101 Research as Practice aims to give you an understanding of research and its position within personal practice and includes visits to studios and galleries as well as lectures and intensive study days shared with other postgraduate students in the Department of Art. This essential introduction to research will feed into assignment tasks for other modules. CUR120 Curatorial Practice explores curatorial roles and contexts through visits to a range of curators working in the region, in addition to workshops on the practicalities of exhibition making. Complementing this module is CUR130 Curatorial Models, a series of tutor and student-led seminars, which introduces curatorial strategies and concepts, and provide opportunities for peer group discussion.

During the second study block two projects will give you direct experience of professional curatorial process. Firstly, for CUR140 Professional Practice, delivered in collaboration with staff at Tate St Ives, you will be asked to devise a hypothetical display of contemporary art for the gallery, using Tate's collection. Complying with Tate procedures, you will also produce a range of curatorial writing to support a presentation of your proposal. Secondly, working with the students as a team you will deliver CUR150 & CUR160 Group Exhibition Project, an exhibition of contemporary art at Newlyn Art Gallery. Whilst a course tutor and Newlyn Art Gallery staff will support you, this project requires a high level of commitment, as the student team will be responsible for the successful delivery of the exhibition.

Study block 3 comprises the MA Project, which allows you to identify and explore an aspect of curatorial practice pertinent to your own interests and desired career path. You can negotiate the form of your MA Project from a number of options, including a curatorial dissertation, an extended arts-based essay, an independent exhibition project, and a fully-developed exhibition or curatorial project proposal.

Course staff

Core team

The core team consists of Kate Southworth (Award Leader) and Dr Virginia Button (Head of the Department of Art), supported by staff from the partner organisations. Other University College staff and guest speakers also contribute to the course.

Kate Southworth

Kate is an artist whose work is informed by net art, distributed networks, protocols, practices of everyday living and curating. She works across a range of media and art forms and her works exists as diverse elements, such as grids, conversations, lists, recipes, rituals, magic spells, animations and documentation, loosely organised through ‘fragile protocols' as performances, archives, platforms, exhibitions and events.

Kate talked about her work on curating and distributed art at the Research as Exhibition symposium at Tate Britain in 2010, and in 2007 developed the programme for the Disrupting Narratives conference at Tate Modern. In 2010 she organised the Arts Council England funded Digital Debates series of seminars across the South West of England. Recently she was awarded an Arts Council England grant to develop the Electronic Village Galleries pilot project that explored ways of showing internationally significant art in rural contexts.

She has been part of the arts collective Glorious Ninth since 2001. In 2009 their distributed artwork Cultural Capital was shown at the ISEA09 Exhibition curated by Kathy Rae Huffman; and at Arnolfini's Craftivism exhibition curated by Zoe Shearman and Geoff Cox. With degrees in fine art and multimedia systems, Kate has taught media arts at universities in London and Dublin, and from 2002-2007 was course leader of MA Interactive Art & Design at University College Falmouth.

Dr Virginia Button

Ginny trained as an art historian, first at Leeds University then at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she completed her MA and PhD. From 1991 Ginny worked as a Tate curator in London for ten years, at the Tate Gallery and later at Tate Britain, where she managed the permanent collection displays, before moving to Cornwall in 2001. At Tate she also curated artists' projects and major exhibitions including the Turner Prize (1993-8) and in 2000 Intelligence, the first triennial of contemporary British art at Tate Britain.

Ginny has contributed to or written numerous exhibition catalogues on contemporary art, including social systems (2007) for ProjectBase. She has also authored books on Christopher Wood and Ben Nicholson. In addition, her history of The Turner Prize (1997) is now in its fifth revised edition, and her companion guide for Tate St Ives St Ives Artists was published in 2009. For Newlyn Art Gallery as part of social systems she curated an exhibition of new work by Christine Borland in 2007.

She set up MA Curatorial Practice at Falmouth in 2008 and was course leader until her appointment as Head of the Department of Art in 2010. In 2009 she wrote the curatorial narrative for Cornwall's Manifesta bid and in 2010 delivered in partnership The Falmouth Convention, a major ACE-funded international conference at University College Falmouth. Ginny is a board member of ProjectBase, which has responsibility for the delivery of The Cornwall Programme, a series of international commissions and projects in Cornwall (2012-16).

Input from partner organisations

Students have induction sessions at partner organisations, followed by a series of focused practical sessions delivered in the classroom by relevant members of staff. Students work on projects with Tate St Ives and Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange in the second study block.

Tate St Ives

• Mark Osterfield, Executive Director
• Martin Clark, Artistic Director
• Sara Matson, Curator
• Susan Lamb, Head of Learning and Public Programmes
• Danielle Hitchcock, Marketing and Press

Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange

• James Green, Director
• Blair Todd, Deputy Director/Exhibition Curator
• Kirsty Lowry, Education Manager
• Kathy Hill, Marketing

ProjectBase

• Sara Black Director

Visiting tutors

Visiting tutors have included, for example:

• Zoe Shearman, independent curator and founding Director of Relational
• Paul O'Neill, independent curator and writer
• Simon Morrissey, independent curator and Director of Works/Projects, Bristol, WHW, Curator's collective, Zagreb, curators of Istanbul Biennial 2009
• Charles Esche, Director, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven

MA lecture series

The MA lecture series is open to all students at Woodlane. Guest speakers have included a range of international artists and curators, for example; Tim Marlow, Martin Creed, Katie Paterson, Mark Dion, Michael Craig-Martin, Bob and Roberta Smith, Tania Kovats, Common Culture, Simon Fujiwara, Simon Starling, Dexter Dalwood, Teresa Gleadowe and Solveig Øvstebǿ.

Entry requirements and how to apply

Entry requirements through the university sector include Honours Degrees, Foundation Degrees and HNDs in a related subject and a demonstrable interest in contemporary art. If you have solid professional industry experience rather than academic achievement, this may be acceptable for entry to study at this level through a process called APEL (Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning). More information about entry requirements can be found here

We welcome enquiries and applications at any point in the year; however we recommend that you apply as early as possible as we are able to offer only a limited number of places. 

Applications should be made direct to Falmouth using the online application form

Interview and selection process

Once you have applied the course team will assess your application and if we think you have the potential to study at Falmouth we will invite you to an interview. We would really like to see you in person but we can hold a telephone/Skype interview if this is not possible. 

Answers and advice about the course

 Postgraduate study guide 2012 (2.70 MB)

For informal enquiries about the course please email: kate.southworth@falmouth.ac.uk

For further information about MA Curatorial Practice at University College Falmouth, please email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 255763.

Funding your study

A Master’s degree represents a significant investment in your future, and you will rightly be concerned about funding. Our fees & funding section outlines fees for full and part time students and has guides to introduce you to ways of funding your course at Falmouth.

Postgraduate Placements Cornwall

Put your skills to use in Cornwall's dynamic business environment on a paid placement project

Postgraduate Placements Cornwall is a consultancy level business placement programme starting in September 2011 and running in Cornwall until 2014. The programme is delivered by University College Falmouth and partner institutions University of Exeter and PCMD.

For more information about the project, please contact the Placement Office in the Annexe at Tremough:

Tel: 01326 254200 or 01326 255984
Email: placementteam@falmouth.ac.uk

Career opportunities

Our graduates can become curators of contemporary art in a range of contexts – notably the museum, the public art venue and the contemporary art commissioning agency. The course may also lead students to specialise in related roles and careers involving working with artists such as exhibition-organising and promotion, critical writing, gallery management and fund-raising, teaching and further study.

Related courses

• Fine Art: Contemporary Practice MA