Organised by Royal College of Art
The 2025 focus for this two-week intensive online short course in Curating Contemporary Art and Design is 'Why Publish? Publishing as Expanded Curatorial Practice'.
The course will explore publishing as a significant creative and critical mode in contemporary curatorial practice. Organised around different curatorial motivations – such as documenting and archiving, constructing (new) histories, collaboration and radical collectives, self-organisation and activism – the course offers an overview of contemporary approaches to curatorial publishing practices in different global contexts.
As a forum for learning in a collaborative, highly dynamic and participatory atmosphere, the course combines analytical debate with online workshops, group activities and practice-led approaches taught by the world’s leading art and design university.
The 2025 guest speakers are:
- Dora García (artist, Norway)
- Raqs Media Collective (artists/curators, India)
- Abbas Zahedi (artist, UK)
- Annie Jael Kwan (curator, UK)
- Morgan Quaintance (curator/writer, UK)
- Chimurenga (artist collective, South Africa)
- Lumbung Press (collective printing practice, represented by artist Erick Beltrán, Spain)
- Ben Cranfield (academic, UK)
- Grant Watson (curator, UK)
- Feral Atlas (online/interactive platform represented by visual anthropologist, Victoria Baskin Coffey, Denmark)
- Ania Dabrowska (artist, UK)
With further speakers to be announced, the July 2025 course is convened by Elisabeth Del Prete, Associate Lecturer, School of Arts & Humanities at the Royal College of Art, in collaboration with Dr Gerrie van Noord and Dr Laura Vallés-Vílchez. The Course Director is Professor Victoria Walsh, Head of Programme for MA Curating Contemporary Art.
From their various perspectives – professionally, geographically, culturally – all of the speakers will talk about the importance of publishing as a mode of practice.
You will learn about:
- Current debates in art and design by engaging with professionals working at the forefront of the field.
- Latest developments in contemporary critical and curatorial practice by encountering a range of institutions, exhibitions and curated programmes.
- How curatorial projects are conceived, researched and delivered.
- How to develop and pitch curatorial project ideas.
- How to work collaboratively.
10 sessions over 2 weeks
7–18 July 2025
3.5 hours a day 10am – 1.30pm BST