The honours programme in Curatorship is offered by the Michaelis School of Fine Art’s Centre for Curating the Archive in close collaboration with Iziko Museums.

The programme offers courses in the theory and practice of curatorship, developing in students a sophisticated awareness of the practicalities, politics and poetics of working with collections of many kinds. Students are encouraged to bring the disciplinary insights of their undergraduate major (whether this be in the visual arts, the humanities or the sciences) to the curating of both material and virtual collections, and are offered opportunities to work on exhibitions in real spaces and in the digital realm. A major aim of this programme is to introduce students, through seminars, fieldwork and workshops, to the central skills of a curator: to understand objects and how to research them, to work with collections, articulating them in exhibitions, and to collaborate with artists, mediating their production. In 2018 we have a special focus on object studies, and the multiple ways in which such a focus can help transform museum practice.

The course prepares students for further postgraduate study or possible work as curators, museum educators, collection managers, and for positions that require the use, interpretation, display and manipulation of collections.

Academic Criteria for Admission:

Applications are invited from students who have completed an undergraduate degree in the visual arts or cognate fields, including such disciplines as art history, archaeology, visual studies, history and anthropology, as well as any of the sciences where collections are important for research, or for an understanding of the history of the discipline.

Applicants are required to submit hard copies of the following before 31^st of October:

1. a detailed narrative curriculum vitae;

2. a letter of no more than two pages detailing your background and reasons for wishing to study curatorship, as well as your special areas of interest relevant to the programme;

3. academic transcripts;

4. the names and contact details of two academic referees;

5. a sample piece of academic writing;

6. a 500-word research proposal

Further information can be obtained from nancy.dantas@uct.ac.za