The Curating Contemporary Art programme is a leader in its field, with an explicitly global perspective on the current role of the curator. Established in 1992, the MA Curating Contemporary Art is the only curatorial course to place the key issues posed by globalisation at the heart of its curriculum. It is also unique in operating on a studio model. It approaches the field critically, theoretically and through best-practice in commissioning, exhibition-making, programming and art writing in museums, galleries and a broad range of alternative contexts.
Widely acknowledged as an important marker of current developments in contemporary art, the annual CCA show in the RCA galleries has become known for experimental approaches to working with artists, and for introducing new international artists to UK audiences. Using the work of Lygia Clark as a point of departure, the students’ graduating show of 2012, Ritual without Myth, sought to explore practices that make use of the forms of ritual as a catalyst for transformation, while also considering the ways in which mythologies of different cultures are incorporated as part of this process. Artists brought together in this exhibition reflect on issues of geographical dislocation and other displacements. The experience of the exhibition itself is structured to be read as a ritual. In 2011 the graduation show Shadowboxing included works by artists Mariana Castillo Deball, Sean Dockray, Marysia Lewandowska and Wendelien van Oldenborgh, produced in dialogue with the curators as an experiment in collaborative research and production around the question 'What is an Apparatus?', which was taken from the essay of the same name by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben.
Download Curating Contemporary Art Programme Information Pack (PDF)
+44 (0)20 7590 4494
cca@rca.ac.uk
Open Days are held at the College between October and January of each academic year, to enable applicants to explore teaching programmes and meet staff and students.
Download Curating Contemporary Art Open Day Presentation (PDF)