MA Curatorship of Architecture and Design

The Università IUAV di Venezia is pleased to announce that international applications are open for the MA in Curatorship of Architecture and Design.

Recent decades have seen a seminal shift in the means by which ideas are communicated and content is delivered. In this evolving context, to which many practitioners in architecture and design have chosen to take radical responsive positions—or, indeed, no defined position at all—the role of “curatorship” has been expected to adjust against the backdrop of a more dynamic, information-rich cultural horizon. “Curatorship” demands a comprehensive and multifaceted training to enable an agile and receptive practice across multiple platforms and within a range of belligerent contextual relationships. Today, a competent curator is expected to act as a thinker, a writer, an editor, a content producer, a manager of projects at all scales and, above all, a provocateur.

The MA in Curatorship of Architecture and Design aims to train professionals to be capable of developing curatorial projects with a solid foundation in theory, critical thinking, and a strategic knowledge of the practice of exhibition-making. The goal of the programme is to stimulate innovative curatorial approaches aimed at generating new ways of understanding, discussing and presenting our built and natural environment.

The one year-long academic course is structured as follows:

–four months of classes and seminars (which run from October 2017 until the end of January 2018 in Venice, Italy)
–three month-long internship (self applied, with assistance from the course team, in any country)
–five month-long period devoted to the final thesis (curatorial project)

The programme welcomes applicants with formal backgrounds in—but not limited to—architecture, art history, design anthropology, sociology, or visual and communication studies. Taking advantage of its location, IUAV will offer participants an opportunity to be immersed in the globally significant context of the International Architecture and Art Exhibitions at the Venice Biennale. In Milan, a two hour train journey away from the programme’s home base, the Triennale of Milano will also provide real-world case studies.

Course information

–Start date: October 9, 2017
–Duration: 1 year
–Language: English
–Location: Palazzo Badoer, Venice, Italy
–Credits: 60 ECTS
–Programme Head: Mateo Eiletz (meiletz@iuav.it)