1.6 New Programmes to Train Curators

Barcelona chair, Coca-Cola bottle and Levi’s 501 jeans. In 1984 Channel 4’s Hey Good Looking series devoted programmes to four subjects, Style, Architecture, Design and Advertising, written and presented by Peter York, Deyan Sudjic, Stephen Bayley and Janet Street Porter respectively.135 These new and very visible promotional vehicles for design were not intended solely for those working in the sector but helped to open up design to a wider public audience. What is also significant is that many of the individuals involved in the launch of these platforms, namely Terence Conran, Stephen Bayley and Deyan Sudjic, went on to play a significant role in the development of a permanent platform for contemporary design in London, the Design Museum, to be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.

1.6 New Programmes to Train Curators

The increasing number and popularity of design exhibitions required curators who could make sense of this rapidly changing landscape for design. These developments had the effect of creating new areas of practice for the curator but they also called for a specialist skill set. Notable in the exhibitions discussed in the previous section are the number of individuals who were graduates of the MA Design History programme at the Royal College of Art, run jointly with the V&A.

During the 1990s a proliferation of curating courses began to emerge aimed at training students across all fields of curating. In 1992 the Royal College of Art (RCA) was one of the first higher educational institutions to establish a masters programme in Curating Contemporary Art in partnership with a major museum, the V&A. The programme was significant in that it recognised a need to teach theory and practice taking curatorial research outside of the university and into the museum. The course put a strong focus on the study of the intellectual and theoretical discipline combined with vocational training in curatorial practice.

135

Alice Twemlow, Sifting the Trash: A history of design criticism, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2017: 140.

In 2001 the Design Museum established its first postgraduate programme with Kingston University. The MA in Curating Contemporary Design was the idea of Design Museum Director Paul Thompson and design historians Catherine McDermott and Penny Sparke, who had joined Kingston University from the RCA in 1999.136 In September 2000 an advertisement for the course appeared in Museums Journal which stated the following:-

“The Design Museum and Kingston University will launch an MA in Curating Contemporary Design in Autumn 2000. This will be the first postgraduate course to prepare students for a career in the museums sector, event management or trade venue specialising in contemporary design.”137

The advertisement went on to explain that students would receive a strong grounding in the specialised nature of curating contemporary design and knowledge of the interpretative, educational, marketing and financial aspects of the discipline. They would be involved in all aspects of planning and organising live exhibitions. Leading practitioners and visiting tutors would be invited to hold lectures and seminars that identified the key areas of curating contemporary design.

The promotion for the new course communicates two key shifts. The partnership with the Design Museum alludes to the specificity of design with a strong focus on the curating of design, rather than art. It also suggests the idea of an expanded field of practice in preparing students not just for a career in museums, but also for areas outside the traditional museum or gallery, such as retail, events management or trade fairs.

The masters in Curating Contemporary Design offered by Kingston

136

Curating Contemporary Design: Definitive Field Document, Faculty of Design, Kingston University, June 2000, MA CCD course files, the Design Museum Archives, London.

‘MA Curating Contemporary Design, A unique course starting Autumn 2000’, Training

137 and Conferences, Museums Journal, September 2000: 49. the Design Museum Archives, London.

University in partnership with the Design Museum was quickly followed by other postgraduate curatorial programmes. Together they formed an extensive international portfolio of training opportunities in this new field of practice. Individually they offered a specialist focus in different areas of curatorial practice such as MA Fashion Curation established at London College of Fashion and MA Narrative Environments at Central Saint Martins.

By 2006 other postgraduate curating courses were in development, namely an MA in Curating at Sunderland, Sheffield Hallam and Leeds Metropolitan Universities and an MA Curating New Media Art at Liverpool John Moore’s. The courses can be interpreted as the first stage in the emergence of a new contemporary curatorial discourse which was being led by, and for, a new generation of curators. The new courses were training curators and equipping them with skills that addressed traditional forms of research, writing and exhibition-making alongside training in new contexts such as online platforms, broadcasting and more experimental media and display formats. More importantly, the establishment of the masters programme at Kingston University and the Design Museum indicated that design curating was developing as a new academic discourse and professional opportunity.

Testament to this fact is that, since 2001, many CCD course gradates have taken up high profile posts in the sector. Catherine Ince, formerly a curator at the Barbican, London, is now Senior Curator with responsibility for developing the V&A East in Stratford opening in 2021. Nina Due, formerly Head of Exhibitions at the Design Museum, London, is now Director of the Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg. Sarah Mann, who was Head of Learning and Participation at Somerset House between 2008 and 2012, is now Director of Architecture Design Fashion at The British Council. Sumitra Upham, previously Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, is now Curator of Public Programmes at the Design Museum, London.

MA CCD graduates have also been leading change internationally and reflect the opportunities for curators in many different global contexts and cultural locations. Gina Ha-Gorlin, the British Museum’s first Korean curator gained an Arts Council Fellowship to increase diversity within the museum profession; Eunjoo Maing is part of the Korean Institute of Design Promotion’s (KIDP) senior team and an International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) board member; Rafael Chikukwa, the course’s first African curator, is Chief Curator at the National Gallery, Zimbabwe and Keinton Butler is Senior Curator of Design and Architecture at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS), Sydney.138

The course has also been actively building contacts with China where there is a clear demand for curator training programmes seeing China as an emerging market for design and curatorial practice. Since 2005, funding from the Sino British Fellowship Trust has awarded a bursary to a Chinese student each year enabling them to take up a period of study in London. The destinations of course graduates show that design curating has become an important professional opportunity in China. Danful Yang is designer and creative director at the Pearl Lam Design Gallery, Shanghai; Ning Li is Deputy Director of the Collection department at the China Art Museum, Shanghai; Shengnan Liu is Arts Manager for Creative Industries Development at the British Council, Beijing.139

The postgraduate training programmes have contributed to an increased critical focus on the practice of curating in the UK and internationally. They have also produced curators who are now promoting contemporary design in a range of contexts. Interviewed for an article exploring the rise of postgraduate programmes in curating in 2006, Professor Catherine McDermott, then Course Director for MA Curating Contemporary Design,

138

MA CCD alumni also include; Renata Becceril who runs the Mexican Open Design Festival; Arpna Gupta, part of a new wave of independent curators in India and Fleur Watson, Curator of the Design Hub, RMIT, Melbourne.

MA CCD graduate Henry Lu is a Reader and Design Writer at Luxun Academy of Fine

139 Arts(LAFA), Dalian. He is currently writing a book on design museums of the world, to feature the Design Museum, London.