ZHdK Curatorial Studies

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Zürich
ZHdK Curatorial Studies

MA Cultural Critique, ZHdK
(former MA Art Education)

Herausforderungen einer zukunftsorientierten Vermittlungspraxis in vielfältigen professionellen Kontexten gerecht zu werden. Ausgehend von einem gemeinsamen Basisprogramm führen drei Vertiefungen zu drei unterschiedlichen Abschlüssen: Ausstellungsmacherinnen und Kulturvermittler, Lehrende für Bildnerisches Gestalten an Maturitätsschulen sowie Expertinnen und Experten der fachnahen öffentlich-medialen Kommunikation.

27/05/2026

Zurich Art Weekend Research Tour:
OTHERED WORLDS AND THE WESTERN GAZE
By Parita Upadhyaya

Beginning at We are AIA’s exhibition Botanical Memories at Zurich’s Botanical Garden, continuing through the Old Town, and ending at the ETH Bildarchiv, this walk explores divisions between humans and non-humans, colonial trade histories, and marginalised forms of knowledge. It examines how scientific ideas of progress have shaped perceptions and representations of plants, humans, and the “other.”

Parita Upadhyaya is an architect, researcher, and curator whose work engages with archival research and colonial historiography. Working at the intersection of architecture and curatorial practice, her experience spans architectural exhibitions, interpretive planning, and teaching. Her research focuses on processes of meaning-making in the production of culture, inquiring how histories are constructed, mediated, and represented.

Fri, June 12, 16:00 – 17:30 | EN
Sun, June 14, 15:00 – 17:00 | EN

RSVP via the Zurich Art Weekend website-> link in bio

For Zurich Art Weekend 2026, an innovative research-driven tour format has been developed in collaboration with the MA Cultural Critique, Curatorial Studies (head: Prof. Dr. Anselm Franke) from Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and with the support of Hannah Eßler. These tours will lead audiences to unique and behind-the-scenes locations across Zurich, guided by emerging curators Anja Roosens, Sonia Mesarova, Parita Upadhyaya, Juliette Cornaz, and Maria Sorensen.
This initiative builds on a long-standing collaboration between Zurich Art Weekend and ZHdK’s MA Cultural Critique, Curatorial Studies (former MA Art Education, Curatorial Studies) which began in 2018 and continues to foster art mediation practices and public education through guided tours.
 
  

19/05/2026

Zurich Art Weekend Research Tour
ROUTES OF ROOTS:
FOLK KNOWLEDGE BREAKING THROUGH PAVEMENT CRACKS
By Sonia Mesarova

Embedded within the concrete infrastructure of the city, this tour will highlight places where art, folk knowledge and nature collide in Zurich’s urban context. Stumbling upon plants hidden between pavement cracks and encountering art in unsuspecting places, how can folk knowledge guide and inspire us in the city in our every day?

Sonia Mesarova is a curator and illustrator based in Zurich, currently enrolled in the MA Cultural Critique, Curatorial Studies programme at ZHdK. In her curatorial practice she works across disciplines, having been a member of Tate Collective Producers at Tate St Ives and engages in collaborative and community projects, organising music events in Somerset, UK. Since completing her undergraduate studies in Illustration at Falmouth University, she has an interest in mediation and focuses on printmaking in her artistic practice.

Sat, June 13, 11:00 – 13:00 | EN
Sun, June 14, 11:00 – 13:00 | EN

RSVP via the Zurich Art Weekend website-> link in bio

17/04/2026

Lenses of (Re)presentation
24./25.04.2026
Toni-Areal, Kunstraum 5.K12

How many ways are there to tell a story? We take art off the museum’s walls and craft our own narratives—11 distinct voices engage with the artwork of their choice as video and audio pieces. During the Minor Curatorial Practice, we had a chance to research a piece of artwork, approach it from different angles and perspectives and find new meanings within it. The result is pretty spectacular and we look forward to sharing it with you.

Friday, 24 April 2026
Doors open: 6.00 p.m.
Screening starts: 6.30 p.m.
The non-recurring screening will take place over the evening at Kunstraum 5.K12, followed by an after-party.

Saturday, 25 April 2026
Long Table: 4.00 p.m.
When is art most alive, (do institutions kill art)? Where can art happen? You are invited to The Long Table for a community discussion — a dinner party where conversation is the main course. With refreshments served at Kunstraum K.512.

Countdown for the website:
Lenses.zhdk.ch

Presenting works by
Sofija Digam, MA Kulturpublizistik
Harry Beardmore, MA Fine Arts .beardmore
Sophie Gäumann, MA Curatorial Studies
Linda Hauser, MA Fine Arts
Chloe Kelly, MA Curatorial studies
Maria Sorensen, MA Curatorial Studies
Keshia Palm, MA Theater
Luna Olivain, MA Curatorial Studies
Martyna Olejnik, MA Curatorial studies
Lara Peters, MA Fine Arts Art:ificial Studies
Thalia Tulkens, MA Transdisciplinary in the Arts

Mentored by Anselm Franke, Judith Welter, Jasmina Metwaly , Nadja Schmid , Antonio Scarponi

14/04/2026

Masculinity, Race and Empire
A lecture by Saree Makdisi

We are excited to invite you to our upcoming open lecture by Saree Makdisi. The lecture will address the relationship between discourses of masculinity, race and modernity as they emerged in the Romantic period and were gradually consolidated through the nineteenth century. Discourses of progress, improvement, discipline, productivity and so on were all gendered in this period, with masculinity located as the privileged aspirational pole (for women as well as men) and femininity and effeminacy seen as problems to overcome or threats to the emerging order. The paper will explore the overlaps and continuities between domestic discourses and the patterns and practices of overseas empire as well as Orientalism—all of which, with their attendant racial logics, can be seen to be at work within the national space as much as outside it.
The lecture will be followed by a conversation with Ana Teixeira Pinto and Anselm Franke.

Saree Makdisi is professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), specializing in eighteenth and nineteenth century British literature.

Masculinity, Race and Empire.
A lecture by Saree Makdisi
23.04.2026, 18:00 – 20:00
Toni-Areal, Viaduktraum 2.A05, Ebene 2, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, Zürich

No registration required.

-> Event link in Bio

Image: Portrait of Colin Mackenzie with three of his Indian assistants, painted by Thomas Hickey in 1816

28/03/2026

4.T39 - new publication format, first issue!

Last Wednesday, the students from the MA Cultural Critique - Curatorial Studies program launched the first issue of their newly founded publication format 4.T39. It will appear each semester.

From the editorial:
„4.T39 is a record of the collective effort that captures conversations beyond the lecture: during breaks, after class, over coffee, or in front of the glow of our screens. While we know each other’s work through these informal gatherings, the actual state of our formal research rarely leaves a paper trail. In a time obsessed with outreach, actual publishing remains out of reach for most students. We believe there is a need for alternative print media to explore the possibilities and potential of student-led platforms.
[…]
The voices here collected represent the singular multitude of our community within the program Cultural Critique, Curatorial Studies at the ZHdK is meant to be.“

Thank you for the initiative, design, layout & production: .h.angel .malerba & Isabel

Thanks for an amazing apero, Kaëna!

Thanks for your support in the production and the beautiful documentation,

And thanks for your contributions:
Isabel

artstudio

malerba

Thank you for sharing the beautiful binding designed by and with us .in__altefabrik ❤️

25/03/2026

More than Human: Art and Design in Transition
Thursday, 26. März 2026, 18:00 – 19:00
Museum für Gestaltung, Ausstellungsstrasse 60, Zurich
Limited spots, registration recommended! —> Link in bio

The climate crisis demands a fundamental shift: art and design must move beyond a human-centered perspective. This conversation anchors the concept of the “More than Human” through specific examples from the exhibition, highlighting the central role it plays in contemporary cultural and theoretical production.
With Filipa Ramos, Lecturer at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW and Anselm Franke, Professor of Curatorial Studies ZHdK
The conversation will be held in English and moderated by exhibition curator Damian Fopp.

03/03/2026

[our guests in spring | 4/4]

We are excited to announce that Saree Makdisi will visit us in the MA Cultural Critique - Curatorial Studies program in the upcoming spring semester. Saree will give an input as part of the Block week of Ana Teixeira Pinto and will hold a public lecture about Masculinity, Race and Empire on Thursday, April 23, at 6pm. Save the date! More details TBA.

Saree Makdisi is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-host of the Makdisi Street Podcast. Among his recent books are Making England Western: Occidentalism, Race and Imperial Culture.

The block week is dedicated to gaining an understanding of how the present is haunted by structural paradoxes that are characteristic to the modern age, both in cultural and geopolitical terms. We will focus on how the distinction between reason and unreason, or rationality and irrationality has been foundational to legitimize to the production and reproduction of global wealth disparities since early colonialism and the age of the Renaissance since the 14th century, and in a newly consolidated form since the Enlightenment in the 18th century. We will explore why defending reason and rationality falls short of defending the liberal order against a resurgent illiberal authoritarianism in the present, and how this impacts our discussions of the role of the arts in society today.

10/02/2026

[our guests in spring 2026 | 2/4]

We’re excited to welcome Denise Ryner as a guest lecturer in the MA Cultural Critique - Curatorial Studies program in spring 2026. Denise will teach the course „Mediation II“ together with our head of program Anselm Franke.

Denise Ryner has worked for over 15 years in the university, public and non-profit gallery sectors including the University of Toronto Art Museum, Art Metropole, Simon Fraser University Galleries and Or Gallery in Vancouver where she served as Director-Curator from 2017 to 2022. Her independently curated projects include ‘Common Cause: before and beyond the global’ (2018) at Mercer Union, Toronto; ‘Sediment: the archive as a fragmentary base’ (2023-2024) at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery at Concordia University in Montreal and University of Toronto Art Museum. In 2022 she co-curated the exhibition and symposium ‘Ceremony (Burial of an Undead World)’ with Anselm Franke, Elisa Giuliano, Claire Tancons and Zairong Xiang at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) Berlin.

„Mediation II“ is a module for first year students, taking place in the spring semester semester. Students deal with a whole range of mediation forms and formats of cultural and political education around exhibitions and museums: workshops, guided tours, accompanying conferences, campaigns, press strategies, digital programs. The module is taught by various lecturers from the Master Cultural Critique and international guests and includes numerous practical exercises.

Picture: Denise Ryner, photo by Sarah Bodri

06/02/2026

❄️❄️Impressions from Engadin Art Talks 2026 ❄️❄️

In cooperation with the MA Cultural Critique – Curatorial Studies from ZHdK, the team from Engadin Art Talks 2026 selected four students to assist the curators and write a text for the program booklet introducing this year’s topic „Bonds & Gaps“.
During three days, Parita Upadhyaya, Delilah Angel Fumey, Velina Taskova and Luna Olivain were diving in the crowd of illustrious guest, exchanging with international reknowned artists, curators and researchers, meeting the EAT curating team, and helping the production team wherever hands were needed.

After ten lectures and artist talks, three performances and three screenings, one exhibition, two fantastic dinners and two (short) nights, all this surrounded by the breathtaking landscape of Engadin, everyone returned with their own bag full of impressions and inspirations.

Thank you to the whole E.A.T. organization team for providing this unique opportunity and for a very warm welcome during the cold days.

Pictures:
2, 3, 8-10, 13-14: Mayk Wendt
4-7, 11 Hannah Eßler
12: Velina Taskova

h.angel

curatorialstudies zhdk

22/12/2025

Looking back at our international symposium Der grosse Kanton: Rise & Fall of the BRD

What an experience!

Two weeks after two intense days of exchange and debate are over, we risk a glance back:

From December 5 to December 6, the head of our program Anselm Franke, Emily Dische-Becker (Diaspora Alliance), Philip Ursprung (Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur, ETH Zürich), and medico international invited 28 speakers to Zurich for our two days international conference. We were kindly hosted by ETH Zurich and the Kunsthaus Zurich (Moser Bau) and supported by Zentrum Künste und Kulturtheorie.

👀 more than 300 visitors joined us in person.
👀 more than 1200 people followed our livestream (available with original audio and English translation).
👀 the recording of the symposium got over 10.000 views in the first week only
👀 the event got international attention and was controversially discussed

Time for input during the holidays? The conference is still online -> link in bio.
Want to know what others say about it? On Serdargune’s Blog, you find a collection of links of reviews -> link in bio.

Adresse

Zürcher Hochschule Der Künste, Master Art Education, Toni-Areal, Pfingstweidstrasse 96
Zürich
8031

Telefon

+41434463333

Webseite

http://mae.zhdk.ch/

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