MFA Curating

Goldsmiths MFA Curating is currently welcoming applications for 2024–25 entry.

The original meaning of the word cura is care and concern, and curators have long been caretakers of collections, exhibitions and ideas, of artists, audiences and situations. In the last two decades, curators have taken on broader responsibilities—as conveners, mediators, translators, awareness-raisers—in deploying collective imaginaries, acts of world-making and proposals for more sustainable futures.

Focused on the contemporary, while acknowledging the past through studying genealogies of curating as a discipline, Goldsmiths MFA Curating anticipates what curatorial practice might look like and mean tomorrow. Our course sees curating as a central and complex place from which to see the world, and explores contemporary art’s role in seeing the world otherwise.

Goldsmiths MFA Curating offers knowledge in the form of a toolbox, ranging from theoretical concepts to practicalities of project management, and is built on a peer-to-peer learning model. Our student-centered learning generates independent, articulate, confident, self-motivated, knowledgeable producers and collaboration-minded researchers.

The programme is for students wanting to take up the challenge of contemporary curating as an artistic, social and critical undertaking, and develop their professional curatorial practice. We provide a practice-led research context for aspiring curators and producers, practitioners early in their professional development, and those looking to shift their art career.

Interdisciplinarity, critical thinking, practices of listening and collaboration are key tenets of the programme. These principles help students develop the style and area of practice they want to pursue and refine, whether exhibition-making, public programming, commissioning social or public projects, publishing, doctoral research, or working with artists and practitioners across disciplines.

The programme is situated within the Department of Art and curating students work in close proximity to postgraduate art students and Goldsmiths CCA, allowing for a unique dialogue. We work with Goldsmiths CCA on student-curated events and gallery-based hands-on learning, and CCA Fellowships exclusively designed for our graduates. Students access opportunities to realise projects through our associations with other leading London art organisations including Chisenhale Studios, Cubitt, Forma, Gasworks, Mosaic Rooms and Artangel. Further professional development comes through placements at Tate Modern, New Contemporaries and the Government Art Collection.

One of the world’s first curatorial masters programmes, Goldsmiths MFA Curating is recognised internationally for producing highly qualified curators and arts professionals. Our graduates find employment in top international museums, commercial galleries, magazines, non-profit organisations, academic institutions, and alternative spaces.

Our staff is made up of internationally-renowned curators and academics whose professional practice informs their work as teachers: Paul Clinton, Dr Anna Colin, Chris Hammond, Kirsty Ogg, Helena Reckitt, Professor Andrew Renton and Dr Simon Sheikh. We offer several partial fee waivers based on merit and need, as well as a fellowship scheme for graduates to work on the programme or Goldsmiths CCA.

Apply here.

*Image above: MFA Curating students in Hannah Fletcher’s studio, London, as part of a “Sustainability in the Arts and Environmental Knowledge” workshop, 2023.