Curating and Programming: Acts of Meaning Making for Publics Now

Course goals

After completion of this course, students have learned to:

• recognise curating and programming as creative acts of meaning-making;
• analyse how curatorial choices, visions, and missions address different kinds of publics and spectators;
• use the method of practice as research to design a curatorial project for a specific contemporary audience and situation.

Content

From organizing performing arts or screen media festivals, to curating art installations or film screenings in public spaces, or designing educational side-programs for art institutions, exhibitions, or cultural events: this course explores curating and programming as creative acts of meaning-making for contemporary audiences. You will learn how cultural institutions – like museums, festivals, and media platforms – shape the ways art and creative practices are presented and experienced. We will look at how these institutional frameworks influence not just what we see, but how we see, and how curatorial choices address different kinds of publics and spectators.
 
Throughout the course, we will examine curatorial strategies used to bring together artworks, performances, or media objects in specific institutional contexts and spaces. We investigate how these strategies engage, challenge, or move contemporary audiences in different ways. You will gain insight into creative methods of curating and programming performing arts and creative technologies, in relation to broader institutional, social, and political infrastructures. We will explore a range of approaches to curation and programming and study the different visions and missions of specific cultural institutions and events. In the second half of the course, you will develop a critical and creative response to a curated programme of your choice, using the method of practice as research.

The activities for this course include a group assignment and an individual project. For the group assignment, you will submit a portfolio including 1) a Critical Evaluation – in this you reflect on  an existing project, focusing on curatorial approaches, visions, and missions used to address specific kinds of publics and spectators, and 2) a Curatorial Project – for this you use the method of practice as research to design a curatorial, educational, and/or speculative project for a specific audience and situation. In your final paper, you write a critical academic reflection on the curatorial project that also addresses the method of practice as research.

By the end of the course, you will thus have designed your very own curatorial project for a specific audience and situation.

This course is the third course in the specialisation track Performing Arts and Creative Technologies.

Additional information

Priority rules
This course has priority rules and a waiting list. Your enrolment is guaranteed if you
- are a student in the BA Media and Culture and this course is part of your specialisation (verdiepingspakket)
- are a student in the BA Liberal Arts and Sciences or Taal- en Cultuurstudies and this course is part of your specialisation (kernpakket)
- are an exchange student and meet the course’s entry requirements

In all other situations, you will be placed on a waiting list if you enrol in this course. For any remaining slots in the course, lots are drawn among the students on the waiting list.

Schedule
Please note: the time slot shown here is not yet final, and may still be modified until the third Wednesday in September.