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International Master's Program in Curating, including Art, Management and Law

The International MA in Curating Art was founded in 2003, as one of the first curatorial studies programmes in Scandinavia, and has been developed as an ongoing collaboration between Art History (together with the schools of Business and Law) at the university together with prominent art institutions in Stockholm.

These include Magasin III, Moderna Museet and Artipelag, although we work with a broad range of public, commercial and independent organisations who actively contribute to the programme, such that it has become a nexus which reflects, and is in constant dialogue with, dynamic and vibrant arts contexts, both locally and further afield.

Balance of theory and practice

Curating Art was always conceived as embodying an innovative balance of theory and practice which, together with professional competence development within the areas of arts management and law, not only offers preparation for the multifaceted nature of curatorial practice, but also a curator’s shifting orientation as a thinking practitioner and practicing theoretician.

This conjoining has also informed the programme’s emergence as a production platform in itself. Involving collaboration with numerous artists, both emerging and established, giving rise to a yearly programme of exhibitions, seminars and events, as a central part of master’s level study. The voice and contribution of the artist is seen as a crucial aspect of this process and, together with our students’ often cross-disciplinary interests, naturally encourages engagement with expanded notions of curating, with projects taking place on campus and also within a myriad of locations across the city, both within and beyond established arts venues.

The ways in which theory can live a life of its own in practice also inspires the programme and its students to engage with questions of approach to practical production and how exhibitions and related cultural projects can offer opportunities for devising and developing new ways for presenting and embodying knowledge. The critical position of artistic practices, together with the role that academic research can play in cultural production, led the programme to become one of the main initiators of Accelerator, a new public venue for interdisciplinary collaborations between contemporary arts, science and research, that opened on the university campus in 2019. One way to speculate about the future of curatorial practice is to contribute to the creation of new institutional paradigms, and Accelerator is just such a proposition. It is also the latest in a series of initiatives that have characterised the development of this relatively young academic discipline, innovating future potentials in curatorial study and curatorial practice.

The international Master's programme Curating Art is a two-year curatorial education established and developed as a joint enterprise between Stockholm University and institutions from the art world. Its full name – Curating Art: International Master's Programme in Curating Art, including Management and Law – reflects the curator’s internationalised, professional role and job market. With this as starting point, we wish to focus on the presentation and understanding of art and art exhibitions, including aspects connected to management, organization, institutional frameworks, and legal issues. The students who join the programme represent a broad spectrum of interests, spanning from new tendencies in contemporary art and curatorial practice, to urgent political issues such as environmental challenges and sustainability. Their interests influence topics for assignments, collaborations, and projects that are developed throughout the two years of studies.

Curating Art is in equal shares an academic and practice based education. By merging theory and practice in the courses, the programme stresses the interrelations of these issues. Thus, the courses are integrated with each other in terms of aims and focus. Cognitive aspects from one course reappear in another as a reflective resource. This means that borders are crossed: theory and practice are considered as interdependent in the curator’s work; conceptual ideas are thought of as influenced by experiential, and vice versa.

The programme was initiated by Margaretha Rossholm Lagerlöf, Professor emerita in Art History; David Neuman, Founder and Director of Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art; Bo Nilsson, Artistic Director Artipelag and former Director of Rooseum, Liljevalchs konsthall and Charlottenborg; and Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, Professor and Head of Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School. Their professional width, experience, and engagement continue to have a strong imprint on the programme both through its connections to the art world and in its pedagogical aims and methods.

The closeness to the art world is emphasised in courses and faculty. Throughout the programme the students meet a great number of curators and other professionals of the art field, through seminars, in recurring workshops on curatorial tools, and through the final examination that consists of the realisation of a curatorial project (combined with an academic Master thesis). Each student has access to the guidance of a mentor, who would be a member of the Steering group or an external curator connected to the programme.

Tunnel Vision, 2021
Installation view of Tunnel Vision, 2021. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
  • Programme overview

    The first year of the programme consists of 7 courses, including a 10 week internship. All courses in the first 1,5 semester combine academic and theoretical studies with practice based exercises. Two courses – Scientific Methods and Research Ethics and English for Academic Research – are mandatory for all students in master programmes at the Faculty of Humanities. In addition to the courses, the students participate in a number of workshops that deepen the understanding of different curatorial tools, such as sound, light, and movement. The first year ends with a 10 week internship in a Swedish or international institution.

    In the second year, the students produce their Master examination, consisting of a Master thesis (30 credits) and a curatorial project (15 credits). The thesis is tutored in group seminars with peer review, whereas the curatorial project is tutored by a curator affiliated to the programme. It finalizes in a public presentation, such as an exhibition, at the end of the spring semester and is examined by two curators. The last semester is also open for elective courses (15 credits) at Stockholm University or another university in Sweden or abroad, after agreement of with the course leader of the programme.

    Parallel to the courses, the programme arranges extra-curricular workshops and excursions.

    Curating Art provides ample opportunity to partake in projects and events that continuously take place in Stockholm’s rich art scene. Thus, we urge the students to prepare for full-time engagement during the two years of education.

    For specific information on the mandatory and elective courses in the programme, please see the Course description.

    Curating Art is a fulltime programme, including both mandatory courses specific for the students in the programme, and elective courses during the second year of study. Some of the electives are also open for external applications. In addition to the courses, the programme and its network of partners provide the students with opportunities to partake in projects and events that take place on the Stockholm art scene. 

    Approved leave from studies
    The student who wishes to do a leave from studies within the programme is requested to fill in the form and send it in to the student counsellor. 

    More information can be found in the form Application for study leave in Art History (32 Kb) .

    Year 1

    Semester 1 

    Semester 2

    Year 2

    Semester 3

    Semester 4

    Independent project

    As their final examination, the Curating Art students produce a Master's thesis and a curatorial project, which could be an exhibition, or encompass a range of other formats. The curatorial project is supervised by a professional curator. Over a period of 20 weeks, the student produces an individual project that is often presented and examined at institutions and arts organisations in the local area, or within wider public contexts. The project can be empirically or thematically linked to the Master's thesis, which is produced in the previous term, such that the thesis writing process can also function as an extended period of research in preparation for the practical project.

    Installation view of Within & Against, 2022
    Installation view of Within & Against, 2022. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
  • How to apply

    Applications are to be submitted online via the University Admissions website

    Application dates are 16 October 2023 to 15 January 2024.

    Please note: There will be only one application round. We regret that late or incomplete applications will not be considered.

    To complete the application, supporting documentation has to be uploaded electronically or submitted by delivery service/regular post in time for RECEIPT (not date of post mark) by University admissions in Sweden by 1 February at the latest, please see further instructions in the pdf-file “Application instructions”. Applications lacking the required documentation will not be considered – please make sure that your application is complete, well before the deadlines! Please note that dates for next application period are still preliminary, and may be changed/updated during the fall.

    Approx. 8-10 students will be admitted.

    For prerequisites and detailed application instructions as well as course details, please see the link/pdf-file below!

    Application Instructions, Curating Programme (107 Kb)

    Please note that all supporting documents in the application must be issued in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or English. Documents that are not issued in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or English must be translated into either Swedish or English.

    For foreign applicants, further general information on studies at Stockholm University is available here.

    For further information about the program, please send an email to: curator@arthistory.su.se, or contact the programme coordinator, Nicole Bood, Phone: +46 (0)8 674 74 31 (by appointment).

  • More information

    Student Projects

    This programme is in equal shares an academic and practice based education. The Curating Art students produce a lot of different projects during their studies.

    Exhibitions

    Book series

    Since 2014, the publication series “Studies in Curating Art” has been focusing on curatorial research and on the connections between curatorial theory and practice, within the frame of the international Master’s program in Curating Art at Stockholm University.

    Each issue of the annual publication is self-run by the students enrolled in the Publication Elective Course at Stockholm University. It is edited around a selected theme and, since 2018, has been realized in collaboration with graphic designers and institutions for education and graphic design. 

    More information

    Collaboration

    The programme is working close to contemporary art institutions in and around Stockholm. They provide opportunities for internships, contribute with mentors in the programme, and generate extended networks to the students.

    The exhibition space Accelerator's entrance.
    The exhibition space Accelerator is situated right next to the Department of Culture and Aesthetics.

    These institutions mirror different aspects of the art field, stretching between publically funded museums and artists’ spaces, private Kunsthalles, commercial galleries etc. Although the programme has an extensive network and wide array of collaborations in and beyond Stockholm, some of its most frequent partners are:

    Accelerator

    Botkyrka konsthall

    Iaspis – the Swedish Arts Grants Committee's International Program  

    Index Foundation 

    Konsthall C 

    Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art 

    Marabouparken 

    Moderna Museet

    Statens konstråd / Public Art Agency Sweden

    Tensta konsthall

    Steering group

    Steering group of the International Master's Program in Curating, including Art, Management and Law.

    • David Neuman (Magasin 3)
    • Richard Julin (Accelerator)
    • Tessa Praun (Magasin 3)
    • Bo Nilsson (Artipelag)
    • Fredrik Liew (Moderna Museet)
    • Katarina Renman Claesson (KRO)
    • Robin McGinley (course leader)
    • Alexandra Urefalk (programme coordinator)

    Staff

    • Robin McGinley (Chair of Programme and Course leader)
    • Magdalena Holdar (Associate Professor in Art History)
    • Robert Stansinski
    • Katarina Renman Claesson
    • Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris
    • Isabel Löfgren
    • Valentina Sansone
    • Nicole Bood (Programme coordinator)

    Subject board

    • Robin McGinley
    • Magdalena Holdar
    • Robert Stansinski
    • Katarina Renman Claesson
    • Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris
    • Isabel Löfgren
    • Valentina Sansone
    • Nicole Bood
    • Sarah Rodrigues (student representative)
       
  • Meet us

    Meet our teachers

    Magdalena Holdar, Associate Professor in Art history

    Her main fields of research include conceptual and performative art, exhibition practices, and pedagogy in higher education. Parallel to her work with the MA programme in Curating Art, she is course leader of the MA programme in Art History. Magdalena Holdar is currently finishing a research project on the artist network Fluxus, which will be published in 2021.

    More about Magdalena Holdar

    Robin McGinley, Chair of Programme and Course leader

    Robin McGinley is a British musician, curator of sound and new media, freelance events producer and arts educator currently based in Stockholm. He holds a PhD from the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Group at De Montfort University, UK and is co-Director of Interactive Agents, the independent production company and R&D think tank.

    Meet our alumni

    Waheeda Baloch, class of '11

    –When I applied for the programme, I was basically an artist and art educator. I had a fine arts degree and was teaching at the Institute of Art & Design before coming to Stockholm, but didn’t know about the wide field of curating art that I was introduced to through the Master’s programme at Stockholm University. Curating in Pakistan needed to develop a lot and we still don’t have any institutions where one can get such specialized degree.

    Read full interview and meet more of our former students

  • Contact

    Chair of Programme and Course leader

    Robin McGinley
    Email: robin.mcginley@arthistory.su.se

    Programme Coordinator

    Nicole Bood
    Email: curator@arthistory.su.se