I'd like to use this space to reflect upon my work in lecturing on curating, to attempt to understand the relationship between lecturing in curating and my research work on the curation of art in cities and how these two activities feed into each other. My action based research field work on the curation of cities, certainly has influenced my approach to curating as an applied practice (rather than from an art historical) approach. I would like to investigate this further here. 

Teaching Curating Contemporary Art

Tuesday 23 July, 2019

The key subject I lecture in is 'Curating Contemporary Art' in the Masters of Arts (Arts Management) program. In this class, I draw on my experience as a curator, working in the galleries and museum sector in both Australia and China. We ask our students to consider the curatorial space in relation to contemporary art practices (from across art forms). The class is designed to be project based, with students working collaboratively in the class room, but then developing their own independent projects focused around their own areas of research interest. 

Teaching Expanded Curating

Tuesday 23 July, 2019

Drawing on my experience in the curating contemporary art space, this class has developed out of a need to study the expanded curating space, where the concept of curating happens not only in the contemporary art sector, but also in the museums, theatres and festivals spaces, across time and place. This class will interrogate this expanded curatorial space and use specific exhibitions as sites of analysis to further understand the process of curation. I can locate my own research in the expanded curatorial space, as my research has focused on the practice of curating in public urban spaces. In recent years, my curatorial investigations have moved towards being focused on understanding the relationship and narratives between urban communities and their physical spaces in the context of globalizing cities. 

Engagement Strategies

Saturday 27 July

I constantly think about engagement strategies and how they can be implemented in the class room to make the teaching of curating more enjoyable for students. This week I researched the use of interactive software to attempt to understand the potential of using these in class, for the students to gain deeper insight into the thoughts of the class. After looking at many various versions applications, I concluded that there are many technologies, which seem over the top and not really able to enhance the class room experience, but create more work for the lecturer. It was interesting to see what was out there, perhaps some of the most useful tools are more electronic forms and surveys to get a sense of what students perceptions are of the sector, but also as a tool for them to reflect on what was discussed in class. To date, I am focusing on active learning, where I am asking students to be engaged in different activities, which require them to discuss, write, analyse and brainstorm. Educational researchers believe that changing activities often is better for retaining knowledge for learners and is encouraged in an academic environment.