MA Curatorial Practice

MA Curatorial Practice is a two-year low residency, seminar-based education.

The MA Curatorial Practice is open to international applicants. The Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design is looking forward to welcoming a diverse group of ten MA candidates autumn 2023. Deadline for applications is May 15, 2023.

The Faculty encourage applications from curators working individually, in collectives, or affiliated with institutions. We also welcome applications from art professionals with a practice that is clearly connected to curatorial practice (such as curating artists, educators, mediators, writers and others) and those from affiliated fields of culture (theatre, media, film, literature, music etc.) prepared to reflect on and translate their knowledge and practice.

The group will consist of ten curators who have a personal commitment to their individual project and a strong interest in sharing their knowledge and thinking to further deepen the work they do within different contexts. The candidates should desire to investigate and question their surroundings and professional contexts in order to create an ongoing discursive forum. We emphasise peer learning and acknowledge that curatorial practice is varied and contextual.

The MA candidates are each  required to develop, produce and contextualise one project in a public context, with a responsibility to secure and develop the collaborations necessary to make this happen—with artists and other professionals, funding bodies, art institutions or other sites. There is an emphasis on sharing knowledge and debate within and beyond the group of candidates, thus the Faculty will support a public seminar organised by the candidates in collaboration, and an anthology published online.

Teaching is organised via a varied group of guest tutors, invited by the Course Director to respond to the candidates’ particular needs, interests and curiosities, in consultation with the group of candidates. Each candidate will also choose an external tutor to follow their project individually throughout their MA.

Please join us March 29 for an online open day! A recording will be made available soon after online.

The MA consists of 16 seminars in total. Please read more about the seminars on the application page, and consult the study plan.

Seminars will happen in Bergen and where possible in the locations where the candidates live and work. The locations and extent of travel will be decided collectively.

Seminars have since 2015 taken place in Accra, Amsterdam, Arles, Beirut, Bergen, Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Jogjakarta, Kassel, Livingstone, Lofoten, London, Nairobi, Oslo, Paris, Portland, Singapore, Stockholm, Trondheim, Tromsø, Aalborg.

The first seminar autumn 2023 will be in Bergen. Students on the programme are not required to move to Bergen, and we welcome national, international and inter-cultural applicants to a safe study environment.

The teaching language is English.

Each candidate receives a small traveling stipend, which for previous cohorts have been NOK 10,000 over two years.

Please note that the MA programme is currently in its scheduled 5-year revision process and changes to the structure of the programme might occur.

Candidates have in dialogue with their employers incorporated this MA as part of their working practice within institutions willing to invest in their employees and further their professional development.

The candidates will graduate in June 2025, provided they have fulfilled the following criteria:
–A minimum of 80 percent attendance and participation is required
–Successfully passed all courses
–Successfully completed the individual project
–Submitted documentation of this project (images, sound, video, ephemera etc.)
–Submitted a written piece reflecting on and contextualising the individual project (8,000–12,000 words)
–Passed an oral examination with external examiners

The applicant must hold a bachelor’s degree and have at least two years of professional practice to apply.

Applicants are assessed on the basis of a project description, a portfolio documenting previous projects, CV, past diplomas/certificates, and an interview, which will be conducted in person in Bergen, Norway June 26 and 27. For applicants outside of Europe, online interview is possible.

*Images above, left to right: Video still: ariella tai (Conductions: Black Imaginings curated by Jaleesa Johnston at Portland Art Museum). Research moment with artist Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa. Photo: Kitto Derrick (Resonance curated by Stéphane Kabila at Livingstone Office for Contemporary Art). Experimental communication material. Illustration: Håvard Legreid (Terskelstimulus curated by Kirsti van Hoegee at KRAFT). Participatory performance: Malin Arnell & Mar Fjell. Photo: Michael Miller/OCA (Gestures and Nods curated by Itzel Esquivel at Bergen Kunsthall). Detail of artwork: Sophie Utikal. Photo: Dávid Biró (I hold the table with my hands instead of the broken legs curated by Flóra Gadó at Trafó Gallery).