Curating Contemporary Design MA (in partnership with The Design Museum)

This collaborative degree, between Kingston School of Art and The Design Museum, has grown into one of the world's foremost programmes for design curators.

Taught by leading curators and designers, the course engages critically and creatively with our fast-changing, complex world. You will have the opportunity to curate live projects and build your own professional profile, through The Design Museum and with institutions such as the Architectural Association, British Council, Gallery Fumi and the Royal Academy of Arts. Led by both research and practice, this course has taught aspiring curators for more than 15 years.

You will develop creative and practical skills for curating design exhibitions, public programmes and alternative curatorial formats. You will learn to critically reflect on curatorial practice, work trans-disciplinary and speak and write about contemporary design and curatorial practice.

The course offers visits to studios, exhibitions, galleries and independent creatives. There is also an optional international study trip.* Past destinations have included New York, Berlin and Amsterdam. Through a dissertation and/or project, you will showcase your originality and creativity in design curation.

The Kingston School of Art environment, which includes the Stanley Picker Gallery, Dorich House Museum and outstanding workshop facilities, encourages creativity and experimentation as responses to interrogations of contemporary conditions. To actively consider geopolitical, social and economic concerns, Curating Contemporary Design is taught within a transdisciplinary framework that allows students to develop responses to the complexity of the world today.

*Students will be required to cover additional costs, such as travel.

After you graduate

Our graduates work in museums, galleries, creative agencies and cultural organisations around the world, including the Design Museum, London; M+, Hong Kong; Korean Institute of Design Promotion, Seoul; ARoS Aarhus Art Museum; Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney; RMIT University, Melbourne; National Gallery of Zimbabwe; Shanghai Art Museum; and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Through our alumni, the course has developed an extensive international network of curators that include:

• Raphael Chikukwa: Executive Director at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.
• Catherine Ince: Director of Exhibitions and Programmes at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum.
• Sumitra Upham: Head of Public Programmes at the Crafts Council in London. Previous Curator of Programmes, 5th Istanbul Design Biennial and Co-curator of the British Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia 2023.
• Eunjoo Maing: Director/ Head of D-TEC Academy and International Affairs at the Korea Institute of Design Promotion and Regional Advisor, World Design Organisation, Seoul.
• Fleur Watson: Associate Professor, School of Architecture & Design at RMIT University and founding director of collaborative curatorial practice at 'Something Together'.
• Nina Due: Director at the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg.
• Melita Skamnaki and Wilhelm Finger: Directors and Co-founders of Double Decker in London.
• Keinton Butler: Senior Curator of Design and Architecture at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney.