Program Content: Focus on Creative Curating in Asia and Europe

Curating is ubiquitous today. Since the 1990s it has morphed into a creative activity. A “curator”, from the ancient Latin meaning of “attending to, caring for” is an impassioned co-creator who nurses the relationship memories from an intellectual, historical, social and inter-cultural viewpoint. The cultural curator is increasingly both a knowledge creator and a communicator. As knowledge creator s/he experiments with different formats, different ways of experiencing while creating different meanings. The contemporary curator challenges old formats by re-inventing novel ones that often build on history and previous experiences. As a communicator s/he is able to convey the rich curatorial data to a larger public both on- and offline. So, curating today means also taking care of (im)material culture, of social relationships, (non)urban interactions and of cultural politics.  This program is unique as it goes beyond mainstream curatorship programs that operate within the museum sector while focusing on high culture. The specificity of our program is that we adopt an expanded notion of curatorship and art by turning our gaze also to (im)material culture, social relations and cultural politics embedded in the (non)urban interactions. The creativity of the curator is key in our program in that s/he conceives and create the own idiosyncratic lifeworld while at the same time able to communicate, present and/or sell the art or artisan output in the different strata of society, including the market. The program targets European and Asian students with an open and global perspective and thus contributing to a better understanding and mutual inspiring practices. This openness requires insights and competences in intercultural communication. The program consists of a balanced mix of courses on cultural policy in Europe and Asia, intercultural and multilingual interaction, different research methods and good practices provided by practitioners in the first semester. In the second semester the student conduct an internship either in China and from 2024-2025 also in other Asian countries such as Japan, South-Korea, Thailand, etc. or in Belgium/other European countries.

Who for?

This programme targets students from EER-countries and Asia with an educational background in area studies and higher art education.

The postgraduate is a one year-programme of 55 ECTS.

• In semester 1 both Asian and European students attend lectures and workshops at the University of Antwerp.
• In semester 2 students will test their curatorial knowledge and skills in an organization, cooperation or company in either Europe (for Asian students) or Asia (for European students).