Curatorial Practices and Exhibition Design

Initiated by the Building Audiences Group (Department of Architecture), this Q5 course invites students to develop their curatorial and editorial skills, with a focus on the built environment. Throughout the quarter, students will design and produce one exhibition and an accompanying publication that addresses pressing societal issues. The course is built around interdisciplinary collaboration, direct exchanges with industry professionals, the design and production of an exhibition that will open at the Orange Hall in week 1.10, and the organization of a public talk.  

Students will have the opportunity to engage with professionals from the Department of Urbanism (Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment), the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Stichting Archined (Rotterdam), Make Move Think Foundation (The Hague), Editoriale Domus SpA (Milan), and The New Institute (Rotterdam). These collaborations will take place at different stages and degrees of involvement throughout the course.  

The course equips students with critical, creative, and communicative tools to disseminate knowledge and engage broader audiences. Students will curate the content of an exhibition and design the physical space for it, displaying their work in an architectural piece they conceive themselves. The exhibitions are intended to spark public conversation. Future editions of the course may expand the formats of dissemination to include digital media, podcasts, and interactive installations.

1. Individual report - 60%

Drawing from their reflective journals, each student will document their contributions to the group project, design decisions, reflections on their learning process, and feedback received from tutors. In week 10, following the opening of the exhibition and public event, each student will submit a report, which they will present during an individual interview with the tutors. The criteria for developing this individual report will be provided to students at the start of the Q5 course.

Assessment criteria: Depth of reflection, clarity of documentation, evidence of individual contributions, and critical thinking.

2 Group projects - 40%

Students will work in teams from 2 tot 5 students, to design and produce an exhibition and its accompanying publication. While collaborating in groups, each student will be individually assessed on creativity, innovation, research quality, effective completion of assigned research, and responsiveness to tutor feedback and critique. Each student will receive an individual grade (100% of the final grade), determined by their individual reports and overall performance throughout the semester, rather than a group grade.

Assessment criteria: Quality of research completion, design innovation, coherence between exhibition and publication, ability to adapt and integrate teamwork, and presentation.

Attendance, participation, engagement and responsiveness are expected and appreciated and they will certainly contribute to you successfully completing the course and getting the most out of it.

3. Public presentations

At the end of the course, students will present their exhibition and accompanying publication to an audience that includes peers, faculty, and external stakeholders. Presentations will be followed by a public talk and Q&A session.

Assessment criteria: Clarity of presentation, engagement with the audience, quality of visual and verbal communication, and responsiveness during the Q&A session.

4. Grade improvement opportunity

Students pass the course with a 6.0 or higher. With a lower grade, the course can be repaired to change the grade into a pass. The repair is unsupervised and needs to be completed within 2 weeks after the end of the course. When the repair is unsuccessful, the student needs to follow the entire course again, or possibly another Q5 elective in the third education period.

Assessment Criteria: Responsiveness to feedback, improvement in identified areas of weakness, depth of revisions made, and timely resubmission