MA curating apprenticeship

MIMA School of Art & Design at Teesside University has launched the first UK Higher Degree Apprenticeship in Curating.  Designed for cultural employees who wish to develop their curatorial practice whilst working, places are 95% funded for those backed by employers in the creative and cultural sector. The course is open to a wide range of staff at galleries, museums, libraries and creative organisations in England. Applications open January 2022 and expressions of interest open now. Course starts April 2022.

Content and structure
The qualification has been designed by MIMA School of Art & Design’s Principal Lecturer Dr Paul Stewart and Professor Sarah Perks with MIMA gallery’s Artistic Director Elinor Morgan. Consisting of three major parts: global critical contexts, collections and access and curatorial practice, the course content is suitable for a range of art forms in line with the team’s interdisciplinary spirit.

Based at international art gallery and museum, MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art), this professionally focused course covers the advanced practical and intellectual requirements of a curator including collections, commissioning, interpretation, engagement, project management and critical theoretical contexts. There is also a particular focus on key issues in the sector including decolonisation, diversity and inclusion, place-making and sustainability.

The course includes collection development, management (including acquisitions and loans), curatorial theory and strategy, historical and contemporary relevance, alongside research, development and project management of new exhibitions and curatorial projects including commissioning artists, learning and audience development including digital methodologies. Apprentices also have access to specialist sector networks. The course includes three week-long residencies at MIMA in Middlesbrough and the rest of the apprenticeship can be completed remotely.

Course team
Professor Sarah Perks  has extensive experience of exhibitions and curatorial projects working across a range of fields, from current research into creativity and nature recovery to working as programme advisor for the BFI London Film Festival.  Dr Paul Stewart is an artist, curator and writer, whose experience includes co-founding Middlesbrough Art Weekender, specialising in galleries as sites for learning and recent editorials on digital curatorial practice with On-curating and Routledge. As Artistic Director of MIMA, Elinor Morgan has curated the current exhibition Sonia Boyce, In the Castle of My Skin and recently, Why am I Here? With Black Artists & Modernism, a collaboration with the research group auditing the Middlesbrough Collection and revealing new narratives and Thresholds, an online exhibition with artist, curator and writer Aidan Moseby, developed through a partnership with DASH that supports the development of Disabled curators.

The course and development of apprenticeships is part of the University’s and MIMA’s commitment to access and social mobility, acknowledged by winning The Times University of the Year 2021 for social inclusion. This postgraduate qualification is also open to people who can demonstrate equivalent industry experience instead of academic qualifications. The course team acknowledge many curators already hold a postgraduate certificate and are hoping to encourage those in other positions including from education and learning and operational roles to enrol.

As well as the Higher Degree Apprenticeship in MA Curating (open to applicants in the UK only and more information on UK Government apprenticeships is here), this course is offered as a standard route MA Curating or MA Curating (Advanced Practice), and there is also an undergraduate route in curating starting September 2022, details can be found here. MIMA is an active member of the nationwide Plus Tate Network. For further information and to submit an expression of interest in the HDA in MA Curating, please visit us here.