MIMA to offer ground-breaking new curating apprenticeship

MIMA School of Art & Design at Teesside University has launched the UK’s first combined masters and higher degree apprenticeship (HDA) in Curating.

The MA Curating apprenticeship means that places are fully funded for those backed by their employers in the creative and cultural sector. This is open to a wide range of staff at galleries, museums, libraries, and creative organisations, who will come to Middlesbrough for week-long residentials then pursue self-directed studies online over two or three years.

The qualification has been designed by MIMA School of Art & Design’s Principal Lecturer Dr Paul Stewart and Professor Sarah Perks with MIMA gallery’s Artistic Director Elinor Morgan. The course consists of three major parts: global critical contexts, collections and access, and curatorial practice. The course content encourages a range of art forms in line with the team’s interdisciplinary spirit.

Professor Sarah Perks works across a range of fields, from current research into creativity and nature recovery to working on her third year as a programme advisor for the BFI London Film Festival. Dr Paul Stewart is an artist, curator and writer, whose experience includes founding Middlesbrough Art Weekender, specialising in galleries as sites for learning and recent editorials on digital curatorial practice with On-curating and Routledge. As Artistic Director of MIMA, Elinor Morgan has curated the current exhibition Sonia Boyce, In the Castle of My Skin and recently, Why am I Here? With Black Artists & Modernism, a collaboration with the research group auditing the Middlesbrough Collection and revealing new narratives and Thresholds, an online exhibition with artist, curator and writer Aidan Moseby, developed through a partnership with DASH that supports the development of Disabled curators.

Laura Sillars, Dean of MIMA School of Art & Design and MIMA Director, said: “This course is unique, not simply because it draws on MIMA’s internationally pioneering work in rethinking what a museum can be for people and place, but also because it draws on Teesside University’s deep mission to ensure social inclusion. Curating has traditionally been an elite sport, we seek to blow that out of the water and develop a generation of curators who articulate new perspectives and tell alternative histories. In so doing they will shape art and culture in this country in unexpected ways.”

Jane Tarr, Director, Director, North – North East, Skills and Workforce, Arts Council England commented: “Creative education remains hugely important to the growth of the creative industries, and MIMA School of Art & Design at Teesside University is breaking new ground again with its higher level degree apprenticeship in Curating. Located in one of our priority places, it opens up a whole range of curating opportunities for a wider range of people in the creative and cultural sector to build a career in this field.”

The course and development of apprenticeships is part of the University’s and MIMA’s commitment to access and social mobility, acknowledged by winning The Times University of the Year 2021 for social inclusion. This postgraduate qualification is also open to people who can demonstrate equivalent industry experience instead of academic qualifications. The course team acknowledge many curators already hold a postgraduate certificate and are hoping to encourage those in other positions including from education and learning and operational roles to enrol.

The field of curating has seen a rapid increase in courses with 17 postgraduate and 42 undergraduate courses currently offered through UCAS over the last decade and an expansion of its application across many sectors including heritage, music, media, design and fashion over the last decade. The dictionary definition has now been expanded to programming in its widest sense and collation of digital content. The course team are also offering an undergraduate route in curating from 2022/23.

MIMA is an active member of the nationwide Plus Tate Network and in November launches a new exhibition Chemical City, a major thematic exhibition on the histories and legacies of synthetics production in the Tees Valley and new, sustainable material innovations. It brings together objects, products and samples that show innovations in material design and technology from the earliest experiments with synthetic fibres and dyes to exciting developments in more sustainable fashion today.

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