New Approaches to Curating Collections

New Approaches to Curating Collections with Claire Dalgleish

Duration: Feb 15 – Mar 15, 2021

Fee: 172€

Max seats: 30

Enroll before: Feb 10, 2021

Dedication: 3 hrs/week

This course will offer fresh approaches for curators and arts workers looking to further their practice working with collections. Whether dealing with commercial stockrooms, artist collections, permanent museum collections or more, curators must find ways to reinterpret and approach the same items over again and creatively engage audiences.

New Approaches to Curating Collections will provide a foundational knowledge of collections and the many forms that they take. By presenting an overarching framework for collection histories, models, and ethics, we will establish a broad understanding of the challenges behind curating collections. Over four weeks, we will explore real world case studies to discover fresh perspectives on how to curate, interpret, develop, conserve, and fund collections.

Participants will have the opportunity to write an exhibition proposal for a collection of their choice. Throughout the course, participants will develop transferable skills to think critically about the cultural values of a collection and creatively interpret collections across a variety of settings in cultural institutions and fine art contexts.

Week 1. Introduction

• Introduction to the program and course overview.
  This is a one-hour-only welcome session. The lecturer will introduce the program and participants will introduce themselves. No prior preparation is necessary.

Week 2

• A brief history of collections and collecting
• Collection models: including national museums, private galleries, artist studios, private collections, and corporate collections
• Collection ethics: challenges, considerations and approaches for working with politically sensitive items

Week 3

• The role of the collector: why people and organisations acquire and collect objects and works of art
• Collection development: how collections are established and develop over time (with case studies)
• Collection impacts: factors that shape collections and exhibition development such as conservation requirements, funding, bequest stipulations, acquisition policies

Week 4

• How to curate collections using different models and case studies: strategies for permanent, private, emerging, and established collections
• Developing a curatorial brief by finding common threads and reading the social context of the collection
• How to interpret gaps in collections and how curatorial approaches can influence collection strategies

Week 5

• Education around collection curation: public engagement and extending the lifespan of a collection
• Moving beyond the display
• Keeping collections relevant and learning to read curatorial trends and debates

Claire Dalgleish is an independent arts curator and writer based in London. She has worked on large-scale exhibitions and projects at The 
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Design Museum in 
London, and S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney. Claire has written for 
traditional and digital publications including Artist Profile, Art
Monthly, Artsy, and Junkee Media. Claire holds a Master of Art Curatorship from The University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from The University of Melbourne, where she was the recipient of The Eugenie La Gerche Scholarship in 2010 and 2011. In 2015, she was a finalist in dLux Media and Artreal Gallery’s Emerging Writers’ program.