The MA Curating at the Courtauld Institute offers an unmatched opportunity to immerse yourself in the theory and practice of curating in a unique scholarly and professional context.
Each year students work collaboratively on delivering a range of ambitious exhibition projects. The group exhibitions provide students with a hands-on experience and understanding of how to develop an exhibition and/or other form of curatorial project. Among its different learning outcomes, by the end of their group exhibitions, students will be able to understand the restraints and parameters that curatorial professionals take into consideration when developing an exhibition and related programming.
This year’s students have curated exhibitions in collaboration with the Freud Museum, the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, St Mary le Strand and Strand Aldwych and Strawberry Hill House & Garden.
Searching for Lost Rain
27 May – 4 June 2026
Discover Searching for Lost Rain, a compelling contemporary art exhibition by artist Gala Porras-Kim, hosted at St Mary le Strand and Strand Aldwych, London.
Curated by MA Curating students at the Courtauld Institute of Art, this free public project explores the displacement of sacred Maya artefacts removed from Mexico’s Sacred Cenote. Through two striking, interactive works, the exhibition questions the separation of cultural objects from their original spiritual environments and invites visitors to symbolically reconnect them to the rain.
Paper Castle
6 – 21 June 2026
Set against the extraordinary Gothic interiors of Horace Walpole’s villa, the exhibition, brings together installations, paintings and sculptural works by artists Tim Etchells, Prem Sahib, David Begbie, Eva Fisahn, Klara Fokicheva, Manuel Alejandro Hernandez Rivera, Annemarieke Kloosterhof, Alison Watt, David Weatherburn and Lottie Wilson.
Taking its title from Horace Walpole’s own description of Strawberry Hill, Paper Castle explores themes of visual deception, ghostliness and artifice, encouraging visitors to question what they think they know.
Curated by: Tatiana Bainbridge, Shanna Câncio Martins, Nahui Colin, Jade Connolly, ángelina divine, Circe Marden-Rull, Oli Louise Mardon, Freddie Sheffield, Sophie Smith, Jane Marie Zelenik, and Sofia Zymnis.
Leonora Carrington: Navigating a world Down Below
28 – 29 May 2026
This conference is organised in conjunction with the Freud Museum’s current exhibition, The Symptomatic Surreal, curated by Vanessa Boni. The two-day conference begins with an introductory evening at the Freud Museum, followed by a full-day programme at the Courtauld’s Research Forum, bringing together an international panel of Carrington scholars with contributions from Alyce Mahon, Felicity Gee, Helen Bremm, Victoria Ferentinou, and Sarah Wilson.
“The stairway that separates my room from my memory"
4 – 20 June 2026
The stairway that separates my room from my memory takes its title from a 1990 poem by visual artist and author Etel Adnan, in which the stairway becomes a metaphor for a transitional identity, a threshold that both separates and connects. Bringing together works from the Nicoletta Fiorucci Collection alongside existing and newly commissioned works by other artists, authors, and filmmakers, the exhibition and its related events explore how notions of home shift through migration, exile, and diaspora
The presented works reflect experiences of both voluntary and forced migration, tracing how home is carried across borders and reconstructed through memory, objects, and images. Landscapes, domestic spaces, and personal archives reveal identity as fluid, provisional, and continually negotiated.
Curated by: Benedetta Cirulli, Callum Stark, Eloise Shevin, Emily Kei, Freya Thomas, Grace Nicholson, Lily Ann Sawyer, Natalie Soghomonian, Olivia Lasa, Zeynep Ugan.
MA Curating
The MA Curating at the Courtauld Institute offers an unmatched opportunity to immerse yourself in the theory and practice of curating in a unique scholarly and professional context.
Past Exhibitions
Discover the Courtauld Gallery’s past exhibitions, special displays and more.
