考陶尔德艺术学院(伦敦学院)

Course Overview

This programme is an excellent entry point for a career in museums and galleries. It puts the physical object at the heart of curatorial training and places specialist knowledge firmly within the context of the modern museum. The course offers a wide range of learning environments and exercises, from taught seminars to group projects and hands-on work experience, and encourages a wide range of expression, written and oral, from academic writing to public debates and gallery talks.

This broad-based programme, which has run since 2007, attracts students with a range of interests, across all periods and media, and maintains a strong focus on contemporary and innovative approaches to curating in public museums and galleries. The programme’s teaching draws widely on the expertise of members of the art history faculty, the conservation department and The Courtauld Gallery, and benefits from close relations and excellent connections with museums and galleries across London, the UK, and internationally. Curators and other professionals at Tate and the National Gallery are actively involved in the programme, leading a practical exercise on Virtual Display. Individual placements, a central element in the year’s programme, are arranged for each student with museums and galleries in London: students work closely with mentors in a range of national museums, public galleries and other organisations in London, one or two days a week over a six-month period.

The programme places a strong emphasis on collaborative working, in taught sessions and in student-organised museum debates; field trips, in the UK and Europe, are organised across the year to ensure the widest contact with curators, museum professionals and artists, as well as with exhibitions, displays and museum spaces. The programme culminates with a student-led collaborative exhibition project, and the mounting of a public exhibition and related events.

Assessment

The MA Curating the Art Museum is formally assessed on:

• Two 4,000 word essays (one each in terms 1 and 2)
• Exhibition project
• A 10,000-word dissertation
• Placements are assessed pass/fail based on mentor’s report following self-reflective report written by the student

Careers & Employability

The programme aims to address a wide range of interests and equip students with the expertise, research and professional skills for an equally wide range of career paths.

Over 140 students have graduated from the Programme to date; around 90% of them have progressed within the museum and gallery sector, in a variety of curatorial and management roles as well as in Public programmes, marketing and development; some enter private galleries or practise independently, while others go on to further research in the fields of curating or art history.