MA Curating Contemporary Design

Program Overview

Why choose this course?

This collaborative degree, between Kingston School of Art and the Design Museum, has grown into one of the world's foremost programmes for design curators. Taught by leading curators and designers, the course engages critically and creatively with our fast-changing, complex world. You will have the opportunity to curate live projects and build your own professional profile, through the Design Museum and with institutions such as the Architectural Association, British Council, Gallery Fumi and the Royal Academy of Arts. Led by both research and practice, this course has taught aspiring curators for more than fifteen years. The Kingston School of Art environment, which includes the Stanley Picker Gallery, Dorich House Museum and outstanding workshop facilities, encourages creativity and experimentation as responses to interrogations of contemporary conditions. To actively consider geopolitical, social and economic concerns, Curating Contemporary Design is taught within a transdisciplinary framework that allows students to develop responses to the complexity of the world today.

What you will study

Through a rigorous framework and practical experience students will engage with contemporary discourse that responses to the complexities and urgencies of today's world. Acknowledging design and curatorial history, you will engage with those contemporary concerns through transdisciplinary collaborations in theory and practice, and will develop stimulating creative interventions and critical writing. Throughout the year, students will work on a major live project with external partners, which will allow you to gain first hand curatorial experience.?The final presentation will be shared with the general public at the Design Museum. Students are currently working on a collaboration with Parsons The New School, New York and HEAD Geneva, which started with a symposium on Design and Film at Dorich House Museum.

Teaching and assessment

You'll be assessed through curatorial project briefs, critical reviews seminar presentations, essays, and a dissertation. Assessment typically comprises practical exams (individual or group presentations) and coursework (e.g. critical review, essays, reports, portfolios, dissertation).

After you graduate

Our graduates have successful careers in prestigious roles in museums, galleries, universities and cultural organisations around the world.