Hello! Welcome to my Guided Research Placement blog. My name is Clare and I have just started studying the MScR in Collections and Curating Practices at the University of Edinburgh. I am particularly excited for the Guided Research Placement component of this program: myself and fellow students Morgan, Barbora, and Despina have been given a brief to curate an exhibition for the Travelling Gallery, using material from the University’s Centre for Research Collections.
Although my academic background is not directly in the fields of curating or art history, it has certainly informed my interest in these areas. I graduated from the University of King’s College, Halifax, with a BA Combined Honours in Contemporary Studies and Biology and a Certificate in Art History and Visual Culture. Alongside my art history electives, Contemporary Studies gave me the tools and background to approach contemporary art through the lens of critical theory. Over the course of my undergraduate degree, however, I became increasingly interested in exploring the tensions inherent to the relationship between academic theory and contemporary art. My honours dissertation considered whether contemporary artists’ performances and appropriations of the art historical canon could translate as an example of a new approach for thinking and writing about contemporary art.
Along these lines, I am highly interested in the diverse and creative ways contemporary art can be curated, displayed, and encountered—both inside and outside institutional settings. I’m therefore very excited for this research placement with The Travelling Gallery. I’m looking forward to the opportunities to learn about curatorial practices in unique spaces, as well as the chance to work with my group to consider new ways to mediate public encounters with art. I anticipate this placement will inform my own research in interesting ways, while providing me with new skills and experience in exhibition planning and design.
