Elsewhere(s) is the overall project title for a series of exhibitions and site-specific installations, curated by students on the MA Curation course at University of Exeter, investigating different definitions of ‘home’ and cultural identity in the context of global consumerism, and what we accept or reject in marking these boundaries. The borderlines between a sense of belonging and unbelonging are often drawn along the dichotomies of ‘domestic or foreign’, ‘safe or dangerous’, ‘desirable or abject’. Elsewhere(s) explores what it takes to feel ‘at home’ in a place such as Exeter, including the personal experience of being an outsider within a dominant cultural context, through exhibitions and site-specific interventions in the city’s busy shopping centre.
Artists: Calico, Duo Duo, Gyokee, Jeremy Hutchison, Jennifer Jones, Pei-Ying Lin, Liu Shuting, Wenyao Mao, Ren Yinlai, Urmi Roy, David Spero, Stephanie Syjuco, Wang Jianhua, Xie Chengfei, Zhang Weichuan, Zhou Chenlong
Curators: MHB, Ella Bradbury, Tong Dai, Helena David, Kelan Dong, Sara Fajardo, Sophia Foster, Yiwen Fu, Meng Hao, Irena Heppard, Xiaoqi Liu, Hua Pang, Zitong Shan, Xiaotong Tang, Yifan Wu, Yang Xu, Hualing Zhai, Kailing Zhang, Zhuoran Zhang, Jiarong Zhou, Yifei Zhu, Xuebing Zhu
MA Curation: Contemporary Art and Cultural Management is a one-year Post-Graduate Taught course at University of Exeter, combining academic rigour and critical debate with professional training and practical experience. The programme is transnational in focus, encouraging an understanding of the social, cultural and economic issues that surround the contemporary art world. We think critically about the relationship between the local and international in different regions of the world, the art market and non-profit spaces, and the decolonisation of exhibition programmes and art fairs. As well as exploring the theoretical approaches associated with curation, there is a professional practice strand focusing on production skills and cultural management. Modules include “Arts of the Contemporary World”, “Institutions and Agencies”, “Art Writing” and “Curating Society”, amongst others.
MA Curation students attend regular field trips to biennials, exhibitions and institutions as well as undertaking a six-week professional placement, tailored to their curatorial interests. Host institutions for the internships have included Sharjah Art Foundation in the UAE; Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town; Galerie Hoangbeli in Paris; Frieze Art Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, Sketch and the Government Art Collection in London; along with regional museums and galleries in the South West of England. Students are also eligible to apply for the annual British Council Fellowships at the Venice Biennale.
In the final term, students have the option to either organise a curatorial project or write a research dissertation. In our inaugural year, the focus for the 2021 practice-based projects chosen by the MA students was “Antibodies: Art During the Pandemic”, whilst in 2022 the theme was “Now’s the Time: Art Year Zero”, in 2023, “Bare Life” and in 2024, “Foreign Bodies”. The MA Curation project archive can be found at uofecuration.art.
