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The Black Curatorial Institute (BCI) creates a new professional development opportunity for arts professionals unlike any that are currently available in the sector. It is a new learning center advancing the curatorial experience. The certificate may be completed through part-time or full-time enrollment and is offered completely online.

 

The curriculum provides students with foundational knowledge and practical applications in anti-racist curatorial practice with a core focus on:

• Art Museum History: Understanding how western art museums developed as cultural repositories of colonialism. Presenting a basis in how to move forward on a new trajectory using new models that do not perpetuate the ills of colonialism and capitalism.

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• Counter-Hegemonic Approaches: Learning how to identify traditional museum practices that are rooted in racist principles for points of potential rupture and transgression of institutional “norms.”  Enabling students to better identify and overcome obstacles to their ideas & professional methodologies.

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• Ethics and Equity: Approaching collection and exhibition development, and overall museum programming, with a critical lens that fully and tangibly engages target audiences. These learnings will present ethical and best practices for success in presenting projects that center historically marginalized communities.

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• Connection to Practice: Experience practical and real-world applications through analyses of case studies and a practicum course that allows students to learn from experienced anti-racist curatorial practitioners.

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• Community Impact: Engaging communities through curatorial approaches that position collective care within frameworks of social and racial equity. 

 

Course Titles:

Art, Whiteness, and Empire: The Art Museum as an Imperialist Repository

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From Negro Buildings to Black Museums: The History of Black Cultural Institutions and Curatorial Praxis

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Anti-Racist Approaches to Curatorial Work & Collections Management 

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Curating as Community Organizing 

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Organizational Change, Leadership & Influence