Curating Contemporary Design (in partnership with the Design Museum) MA: Curating Graduate Workshop

Every year at the Design Museum we invite curating graduates from the course to talk to the new intake of curators about their own curatorial practice and current careers. Insights from this year's presentation include a range of curatorial practice from research, commercial clients and public engagement on a large scale.  

Anjeli Placek – The Concept Lounge

Anjeli combined her training as a production designer at the BBC with the curating course in 2010. She set up her company, The Concept Lounge, with as three areas of practice:

• the ideas generator – about workshops/empowering people/creativity/teaching design process;
• platform – focused on exhibitions/talks and debates; and
• studio – offering design consultancy services.

Premiered at 2011 London Design Week it proved a great hit, five design universities have asked for workshops for their own students, the Icon Design trail showed five features and The Concept Lounge are currently programming Clerkenwell Design Festival in 2012. Anjeli completed some inspirational internships while on the course including an Established & Sons internship and with the Architecture Foundation. As well as her own practice, Anjeli now works for Alisdair Willis developing projects for the 2012 Olympics.  

Her top tip: be brave – go looking and find a person who wants to help your project and be organised – be very organised.   

Sarah Yates, special programmes manager – Open City (formerly Open House)

Sarah curates architecture outside the gallery through Open City, set up by Victoria Thornton 20 years ago. Open House is now the largest architecture event in the UK allowing direct access to experiencing architecture normally not accessible to the public, through 250,000 visits a year. Her role includes developing Green Sky studios, a pioneer programme opening up new design practices to the public and professional development for architects, advocacy programmes and managing sponsorship. A key element is also project management with Green Sky Thinking, her most recent project.  

More recently Sarah has developed her own research project around the collecting and curating of objects for space exploration.  

Her top tip: be clear about the skills you have and be optimistic – there are lots of opportunities out there.

Melita Skamnaki and Wilhelm Finger – Double Decker

Wilhelm started the course as a fashion art director and Melita was an advertising director in Greece. They created Double Decker, an independent design-curating agency that consists of a team of five and a number of collaborators across all disciplines.

Double Decker has been involved with fashion photography at the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in 2009 and the Green Festival in 2008 and 2010 in Athens. Recent projects include Budapest Design Week 2011, in which they were commissioned to suggest design objects to represent Greece. One aspect of their practice is curating for hotels – developing a new aspect of the market and offering hotels a curatorial concept as a consultancy service for business. The hotels range from Mykynos to Tortworth Court (a Grade 2 listed building) and Grace Riverside Inn in Maine, USA.

Their top tip: be strict with yourselves or the audience will be, be persistent, go for what you want to do.  

Eszter Gero, project assistant - Design Museum (Archive project)

Eszter did a history degree and had no clear idea of the direction she wanted but she quickly found her way forward with skills around project management. Her work now includes commercial projects for TENT and ORIGIN and a research project documenting the history of the Design Museum. To mark the new museum opening in 2014, Eszter is archiving the Design Museum records, files, papers and photographs ranging over a decade of the museum's history from its origins at the V&A Boilerhouse Project through its pioneer programme when the museum opened in 1989.  

Her top tip: use the course and network – go to all the openings, take advantage of every opportunity, keep your CV updated and it will pay off.

Sarah Davies, touring programme assistant – Design Museum

Sarah graduated from the course in 2011 and completed a number of projects, including touring programme intern and the China project with China Academy of Art. Sarah talked a lot about taking advantage of internships and their potential to convert into real work contracts. Sarah also connected her coursework for the programme with her career ambitions, her dissertation, for example, focused on touring programmes internationally. Her report on touring focused on future practice in the field, which helped her new role at the Design Museum.     

Her top tip: be strategic in planning your coursework; make it work for you in terms of helping you make a next step in your career.