Curatorial Studies postgraduate programme

Curatorial Studies is an intensive one-year postgraduate programme covering key positions, legacies, ideas, and debates important to the curatorial. By drawing on the expertise of a broad network of cultural practitioners and institutions, the course offers an environment in which a multiplicity of perspectives and critical discourses can thrive. Established in 1999, the programme is the result of a collaboration between KASK & Conservatorium/ School of Arts of HOGENT and Howest, Ghent University, S.M.A.K.—the contemporary art museum in Ghent, and Kunsthal Gent.

Program
The Curatorial Studies program situates curating as a critical practice, providing participants with the tools to engage with its key positions, vocabularies, and research methodologies. By creating dialogue within a diverse network of cultural practitioners and institutions, the program cultivates a dynamic environment where intersecting perspectives challenge dominant narratives and essentialist discourses. Central to this approach is the exploration of curating’s capacity to imagine and shape alternative futures.

Participants engage with the manifold ways artworks exist and transform across different temporalities and spaces—spanning storage, conservation, exhibition-making, and performative events. The curriculum bridges curatorial writing, criticism, and theoretical frameworks with broader socio-political contexts, enabling nuanced understandings of the art system’s circulatory mechanisms, audiences, and materials.

Critical issues at the intersection of ethics, politics, and social engagement are core to the program’s inquiries, urging participants to navigate these complexities with attentiveness and accountability. Emphasizing fair practices and sustained collaboration with artists, the program invites participants to interrogate entrenched curatorial paradigms and unlearn inherited hierarchies.

Through this rigorous engagement, participants are encouraged to reimagine curatorial practice as a site of solidarity, kinship, and shared responsibility, addressing contemporary struggles while expanding the discursive and practical boundaries of the field.

Practice-based learning
Curatorial Studies foregrounds the interplay between theory and practice, equipping participants to navigate the complexities of curatorial work through diverse, hands-on engagements. These include the development  publications, events, and a final graduation show, alongside critical inquiry into the history and theory of exhibitions. Participants actively immerse themselves in real-world contexts through mentorship placements, masterclasses, and site-specific collaborations.

The program privileges collective methodologies, centering group-mindedness, self-organization, and shared authorship as central tenets of the learning process. By interrogating labor distribution, power dynamics, and questions of inclusivity, participants critically examine who is represented and excluded in collective practices. The question, “Who is included when we say ‘we’?” becomes a pivotal lens through which participatory processes are reconsidered. This ethos of shared responsibility nurtures an environment of experimentation, trust, and emotional engagement—imperatives for rethinking and expanding the boundaries of curatorial practice.

At KASK & Conservatorium, curating is reconceived as an act of kinship and solidarity, cultivating a collaborative space for critical discourse and imaginative inquiry. Alumni/ae of the program have advanced to diverse roles within museums, biennials, galleries, cultural agencies, artist studios, publications, and academia. Many have founded collectives or long-term initiatives rooted in the program’s ethos of experimentation and collaboration. Supported by a robust alumni/ae network, graduates remain actively engaged within the cultural field, contributing to its ongoing transformation.

Find out more about Curatorial Studies on the Open day (April 27, 2025) or during the info session on June 28, 2025.

Program details
Language: English / Duration: One year, full-time (September 29, 2025, start) / Schedule: Classes run Monday–Wednesday; Thursdays and Fridays are for research, visits, and mentorships. / Tuition: 2,950 EUR (additional study-related expenses may apply).

Find all info about applying for this programme here and here. For program inquiries: Program Director Laura Herman. For enrolment inquiries: Paul Lamont.