Curating Contemporary Design (in partnership with the Design Museum) MA: Events and lectures

To celebrate the 10th birthday of the course, the staff and students of
Curating Contemporary Design MA in partnership with the Design Museum have organised a series of events.

Each event is guest curated by one of our international course alumni and highlights an area of expertise within this unique course. These include Curating Science with the Wellcome Trust, a curated supper with Haptic Thought, supporting emerging designers and projects in China and Africa. Download our PDF guide for more information.

There are always interesting activities taking place at Kingston and exciting opportunities to take advantage of. Here are some examples of what you could be involved with if you study this course.

Research lectures and events

The Curating Contemporary Design Research Group organises:

• an active visiting professor programme - which has included Craig Miller (Indianapolis Museum of Art), Pablo Helguera (Guggenheim Museum, NY) and Marylin Martin (Iziko Museum, Cape Town); and
• a series of curatorial research conferences.

In 2006 Blueprint magazine devoted a special issue to our curating conference entitled 'New Sites of Practice'. If you would like a copy of the conference edition, please email designpostgrad@kingston.ac.uk.

Crafts Council Partnership Conferences

Organised by the Crafts Council in partnership with both the MA in Curating Contemporary Design and Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), these conferences aimed to extend the critical debates around curating contemporary craft. Visit the conference website for more information.

Architecture Foundation events

MA Curating Contemporary Design students participated in the Architecture Foundation's 2008 season of public programmes with their exhibition 'Sheltered: The Bus Stops Here', looking at the role of the London bus stop. The exhibition took place at Bargehouse on London's Southbank and was part of the Postgraduate Degree Show. For more information, download the Architecture Foundation Autumn 2008 Bulletin (PDF).

Currently visiting the UK as part of the British Council's International Cultural Leadership programme, Samer Yamani is a professional design curator working in Syria and Barcelona. Also the director of the Creative Dialogue Association (CDA), a private, independent and not-for-profit association, based in Barcelona, Samer will contribute to the international perspective and application of the Connecting Contemporary Designers project, by sharing his experience of creating links between creative people from around the world.

With a complementary vision to our project, CDA has the objective of promoting creative dialogue among various creative disciplines in order to bring forward a new space of creativity and interchange between creative sectors in different countries that can be reflected in their cultural and economic life.  Through projects like the Design Road Project, where CDA visited several cities in the Middle East introducing leading designers and artists to local universities to share their knowledge and expertise, Samer will share with the teams the impact that local application of global knowledge can have.

In addition, Samer is currently working with Delfina Foundation, an organisation that facilitates artistic residencies and related public events in the UK, Middle East and North Africa.