Apply to the 25th edition of De Appel’s Curatorial Programme

De Appel invites international curators to apply to its ten-month long, full-time educational platform in Amsterdam. 

2019 marks the 25-year anniversary of De Appel’s groundbreaking Curatorial Programme (CP). Within a curriculum dedicated to anticipating and responding to ongoing developments in the field, the 25th year of the programme will place a special focus on constructing better futures for curatorial practice. 

The 2019–20 CP will unfold through a series of workshops, sessions, meetings, and studio visits, which are punctuated by intensive site visits and research trips. Throughout the course, participants conduct guided individual research resulting in a substantive text or creative project, and collectively self-organize a major final project to be exhibited/presented in the spring at De Appel.

In order to situate its participants constructively in a local context, emphasis is placed on immersion within the regional contemporary art field. Significant travels will be conducted around Amsterdam and the Netherlands for various professional meetings with local curators, art institutions, and artists. Participants will also travel internationally; recent trips have taken place in Morocco, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Turkey, Mexico, and throughout Europe. In the planning of these travels, emphasis is given to introducing contexts previously unfamiliar to the current participants. 

Parallel to these site-based encounters, the programme cultivates direct and profound exchanges of curatorial practice and theory, facilitated by multi-day workshops, one-day sessions, and brief artist presentations. This theoretical and pragmatic approach to curatorial practice encourages continuous questioning and discussion of curatorial models, the ethical and ideological aspects of the profession, and the changing professional parameters of the curator. These themes are considered in relationship to the programme of De Appel, local sensibilities and specificities, and more global shifts in curatorial practice. The CP’s curricular praxis ultimately explores alternative ways of conceptualizing, developing and implementing exhibitions, performances, public programmes, hybrid gatherings, screenings, ephemeral gestures, and long-term investigations, and challenges the institutional and systemic contexts in which these take place.

More info on De Appel Curatorial Programme, its previous participants and mentors may be found here. 

Based upon the submitted documents approximately twelve candidates will be short-listed. Interviews will take place in March 2019, conducted by an international jury, after which the final six participants will be selected.

Application requirements
(1) The application form, completed and signed (see website under “application procedure”)
(2) Motivation letter, max. 500 words
(3) Response of max. 300 words each, to the following questions:
–What is one thing that you would like to change about current curatorial practice?
–What comes after Contemporary Art? What would you like to see, or what has already replaced it?
–Motivate one project you would most eagerly like to realise in the next two years.
(4) CV, max. 2 pages
(5) Two written references of (former) tutors, colleagues, or employers, in English
The application should be submitted in one single Pdf-document with items in the above order. Completed applications should be sent digitally to: cp-application [​at​] deappel.nl

For questions, contact the Curatorial Programme’s coordinator Liza Nijhuis: liza [​at​] deappel.nl

De Appel Curatorial Programme is supported by Ammodo, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK) and Mondriaan Fund.