Call for Applicants
Deadline June 25th 2008

The M.A. in Curating Contemporary Art commencing in October 2008 is focused on the practical: between the making, performance, distribution, and curating of art in the contexts of its international markets. Students will be required to engage practically and critically by developing personal curatorial projects. This highly productive M.A. course will operate professionally and energetically across both the commercial and institutional fields of distribution of art's expanding markets.

We welcome applications for this fully accredited M.A. from practising artists and curators, new or inexperienced graduates in art, design, and art history or with experience in a related academic, or professional / commercial practice. Study is undertaken full-time, to be completed in one year, or part time, over two years. The M.A. Curating Course complements parallel programmes in Contemporary Fine Art Practice and Graphic Art and Design, available as production resources. Overseas students are required to meet IELTS English standards, to Level 6. The M.A. course is taught by lecture, seminar and tutorial, to produce a body of course work, with departmental accommodation situated at Leeds Metropolitan University itself and with gallery / office space and seminar clinics held in London. Regular field trips will be provided to and from London for the development of personal and group projects. The course seeks to be open to diversity, experiment in untried, innovative approaches.

In common with the other art and design programmes each participant works through a self-identified project. The project is negotiated by means of a Professional Development document which sets out the participant's aims, concerns and intentions along with the means of achieving them and its possible outcomes. The Document is reviewed along the way, supported by advisors, and allowed to evolve over the course of the programme. Funding applications will be sought to provide backing for its professional project realisation.


What kind of projects?
A project may be for example executed in establishing programmes for artists-run spaces and galleries; entering professional networks online; designing digital forms for museums; realising exhibitions, from start to finish. The course addresses practical aspects including proactively organising budgets and loans for production right through to arrangements in partnerships with host museums, art institutions and galleries. A series of small-scale exhibitionary projects in Leeds may also to be considered as an 'emergency' biennale in urban sites made available with the assistance of the University, Arts Council, Axis, and local business sponsors. Further funding opportunities would be made available through the relevant local art / education bodies.

Assessment is formative by individual and group project development, providing weekly individual tutorials and group seminar feedback, and by the critical evaluation of evidences that demonstrate resourcefulness. These include conceptual and theoretical implementation and the potential of each realisation for the undertaking, planning and engagement of a curated work.

Online curating projects are to be considered as valuable research documents of curatorial work, and will be assessed by the same criteria applied to exhibitionary projects, in their own right. The course's own website www.slashseconds.org/, provides students with an introduction to contemporary artists and curators, as a research tool for use as a directory of practices, organisations, and academics whose interest may be invited into dialogue to conceive new projects. See also www.reduxprojects.org.uk/, set up in 2003 by the Course leader, Peter Lewis, as an on-going curatorial project interfacing art / educational in events in London. Redux maintains an office in London that will be at the service of students of the course.

The course will be taught by invited lectures and seminars, presented in a series by visiting curators, critics, artists:

Currently invited speakers / lecturers are:

• Paul O'Neill - Artist, Curator, Lecturer at Goldsmiths College in Curating
• Andrew Hunt - Curator, Critic, Director of the International Project Space, Birmingham
• Peter Fillingham - Artist, Curator, Head of Sculpture, Central St. Martins, London
• Clementine Deliss - Curator, Publisher and Lecturer, Director of Future Academy, and the Editor, Metronome
• Gilda Williams - Curator, Author, Lecturer, Sothebys Institute, (previously Commissioning Editor, Phaidon Books, Managing Editor, Flash Art, London Correspondent, Artforum)
• Barbara Steveni - Artist, Curator, Director Artists Placement Group, collaborator with John Latham
• Colm Lally - Director, Event Gallery & Network, London
• Celine Conderelli - Architect, Curator, Director,Support Structure
• Hoor Al-Qasimi - Artist, Curator, Director, Sharjah Biennale
• Maurizio Bortolotti - Curator, Writer, and Lecturer at NABA, Milan
• Alessandra Poggianti- Curator, Organiser, Isola Art center, Milan
• Annie Ratti - Artist, Director, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como

There will be opportunities for students to propose guests specific to their project. Meetings outside the university can be arranged, in addition to visits to museums, galleries, and studios.

There will be further opportunities to take part in art fairs and biennales, such as Zoo Art Fair, www.zooartfair.com/

Sharjah Biennale, www.sharjahbiennial.org/ , has indicated requests for curatorial projects within their art / educational frameworks and platforms.

Students will be encouraged to pro-actively seek new relationships utilising their networks of research, which the university will support, to enable working within both established international events and new, emergent structures. A field trip to a major art event is to be organised during the academic year.

The course will aim to build on dialogues established internationally since 2003 through /seconds journal of research, already working with members of the Faculties of Central St. Martins; �cole Nationale Sup�rieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, Isola Art Center, Milan;www.isolartcenter.org/ Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como.

Commercial galleries and other non-commercial art project spaces in London will host and support collaborative projects, meetings, and launch / publication events including: T1+2 Gallery www.t12artspace.com/, E:vent, www.eventnetwork.org.uk/ , Redux, www.reduxprojects.org.uk/

Curatorial and artist networks have been operating through the journal online to enable new projects, since 2006. Please visit www.slashseconds.org/ for updates.

Timescale
Attendance may be in either full-time or part-time mode. The majority of Home/EU students study the programme full-time. The full-time programme runs over a calendar year from October to August. The part-time mode extends over two years from October 2008.

Admission
Entry Requirements
An honours degree in the particular or a related discipline, or an equivalent professional qualification.

Demonstration of an awareness of and engagement with professional aspects of Curating Contemporary Art which may be supported by both direct and indirect evidence. Direct evidence could be an applicant's own work in any appropriate form. Indirect evidence would be a report on the applicant by another suitably qualified person.

All applicants seeking admission on the basis of prior non-certificated learning will be interviewed.

The applicant will demonstrate the claim for prior non-certificated learning in terms of knowledge and competencies which have been acquired from prior experiences. These will be matched against the knowledge and competencies required by the modules from which exemption are claimed.

The claim may be supported by both direct and indirect evidence. Direct evidence is presented by an applicant's own work such as an essay, a portfolio, artefacts, reports prepared in the workplace, an audio or videotape. Indirect evidence is presented as a report on the applicant by another suitably qualified person.

How to apply
Applicants should demonstrate their achievement of admissions criteria by the submission of:

• A Leeds School of Contemporary Art and Graphic Design post-graduate application form
• A current CV
• A "Statement of Intent" (see below)
• The ability to speak about the "Statement of Intent" and evidence of recent work at an interview. Where applicants have a proven disability appropriate alternative arrangements will be made.

Application forms and advice on funding are available from Gill Kirk, the Course Administrator at g.kirk@leedsmet.ac.uk

Fees: Full Time UK / EU applicants: �3300 [P/T payable over two years]
International applicants: �8700 [F/T] - with loans at low interest rate and grants to assist with fees

For information on scholarships please contact your nearest British Council office or British Embassy. The British Council Information Centre in the UK can be contacted at:
Tel. 44 (0)161 957 7755 Fax 44 (0) 161 957 7188
e-mail & website: general.enquiries@britishcouncil.org www.britishcouncil.org.uk/

In the Statement of Intent applicants need to provide a written account of their interest and reason for application. This is where applicants provide information on their intentions for study; why they want to do it, what they want to do and how they want to do it. This is to enable the course to make a judgement on the candidate's suitability. Assistance with the statement is provided.

The completed "Statement of Intent" whose length is left to the applicant's discretion should be forwarded along with the application form and C.V. by June 15th 2008 to:

Gill Kirk - Administrative Officer
The Leeds School of Contemporary Art & Graphic Design
Leeds Metropolitan University
Room 708 H Building
Civic Quarter
Leeds
LS1 3HE

Note: In 2006, the Leeds Metropolitan University won the award for its outstanding contribution to the local community at the annual higher education awards. It also came second in the main category, 'University of the Year'. In this category, the University was highly commended for its low-charging, high impact strategy providing for its 50,000 students and 5,000 staff.

Further Information:
Peter Lewis, Programme Leader
plewis@reduxprojects.org.uk p.lewis@leedsmet.ac.uk
Mobile: +44 [0] 7986 084697

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