The Course
This Inspire Network Course will engage members with the practical aspects of curating – (a) confronting the conceptually, professional and political challenges in contemporary curating, across the arts and heritage sectors, and (b) addressing specific course tasks in approaches to project development.
The course provides a mix of talk/lectures; discussion, networking introductions; gallery visits; project skills development; critical exercises; and peer-review feedback.
The course is developed around a number of inter-related broad themes which engage with key major ‘change-challenges’ to 21st century curating, and include:
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change driven by questioning of the traditional hegemonic role of museums, and the historicising of the intention of curating;
- change driven by the influence of new technology in art practice, related to the re-opened question of ‘what is art?’;
- change arising from new expectations in regard to ‘working’ the exhibition space;
- change provoked by artists’ questions of the role of the museum and of its relevance to their practice and livelihood, and the related emergence of ‘atelier’, artist-managed, curated spaces;
- change in the face of broader social, political and intellectual activism and ‘critique’ (post-industrial, post-modern, post-colonial, post-feminist) which has invaded the museum and enlivened philosophies integral to curatorial practice;
- change arising from the push of new ‘cultural theory’ – specifically discourse around ideas of ‘open-text’ and ‘multiple readings’ as these impact on the concerns of curating;
- change spurred by the pressure to democratise the museum – specifically through improving and increasing ‘audience reach’;
- change generated by and coming from the arrival of the ‘authorial’ curator – the curator as impresario;
- change that comes with increasing ‘state’ withdrawal from national culture funding commitments and the advent of ‘mixed economy’ finances for museums and curating interventions;
- change in the professionalisation of the business administration of curating – the new importance of ‘input/output’ planning-analysis, and the necessity of sophisticating pitching, presentation and promotion.
