Call for applications: MA Curatorial Practice

With our intense focus on small groups directly engaged in professional training, making exhibitions, reading deeply in the historical and theoretical literature of curating, and engaging as creative citizens, MA Curatorial Practice at SVA, in the heart of New York City, is in the midst of accepting applications for the entering class of 2018–19. Here’s a sampling of what’s happening in the program over the next few months:

After our international summit in the fall, “Curatorial Activism and the Politics of Shock,” with a publication forthcoming from Sternberg Press, the new programming for this spring, organized by Brian Kuan Wood, includes: Network Aesthetics, with Patrick Jagoda, Steven Henry Madoff, and Stephanie Owens on February 22; On Black Performance: When There Is No Other Ontology Than the Stage, Staging, and Being Staged, with Nana Adusei-Poku, NIC Kay, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, and Will Rawls on March 30; and Organize the World Through Food: An Evening with Cooking Sections (Daniel Fernández Pascual & Alon Schwabe) on April 12. On the evening of April 19, exhibitions and newly commissioned performances organized by all of our curatorial fellows will take place at the Pfizer Building, 630 Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.

Coming this spring as special guests: Emma Enderby, Curator, The Shed, New York; Suzy Delvalle, President and Executive Director, Creative Capital, New York; Pelin Tan, Associate Professor of Architecture, Mardin Artikulu University, Ardin, Turkey; Adrienne Edwards, Curator, Performa, New York; Rujeko Hockley, Assistant Curator, Whitney Museum and Co-curator of the 2019 Whitney Biennial, New York; Avi Lubin, Head of Theory Studies, Hamidrasha, Beit Berl, Israel; Connie Butler, Chief Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Gean Moreno, Curator of Programs, ICA Miami; Gary Garrels, Elias S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture, SFMOMA, San Francisco; Sarah Demeuse, independent curator, New York and Mexico City; Kathleen Forde, Artistic Director, Borusan Contemporary, New York and Istanbul; and Álvaro Rodríguez Fominaya, Artistic Director, Center of Contemporary Creation, Cordoba; with more to be announced.

In June, we will hold special meetings and workshops for our first-year curatorial fellows in Berlin during the Berlin Biennale, before they enter internships with leading international institutions. Past internships have been in such cities as Singapore, London, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Bogotá, and New York, among others.

With an eye toward gaining jobs on graduation, MA Curatorial Practice’s courses range over the specific skills and practices essential to work in the field so that graduates can demonstrate a working knowledge that allows them to enter immediately as professional practitioners. And our recent graduates have gained positions at such institutions as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, among others. To give them the training they need, we’re tremendously proud to have an extraordinary faculty of experts, including Mia Locks, Tim Griffin, Laurel Ptak, Joshua Decter, Sara Reisman, David A. Ross, Brian Kuan Wood, and Lumi Tan, among many others; with a faculty at large of internationally renowned curators and thinkers coming on a regular basis, including Maria Lind, Terry Smith, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, and Hou Hanru, again among many others.

We’re now looking for new students from around the world to join our current participants, who come from China, Mexico, Colombia, Canada, Spain, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and the United States. There is no one path that leads to curating. From architecture to art history, art practice, graphic design, journalism, psychology, and prior curatorial work… our past and present curatorial fellows bring a wealth of knowledge contributing to our intense intellectual and professional community. We seek diversity of every kind.

Please enter your application for full-time or, in special cases, part-time participation. For questions, appointments for a visit, and consultations on support grants and financial considerations, reach out to us now: T +1 212 592 2274 or macp [​at​] sva.edu. Visit our website at macp.sva.edu.