Curatorial Practicum

Catalog description

The Curatorial Practicum is a semester-long course offered at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum in collaboration with the Department of the History of Art and Visual Studies. This Spring 2026 the seminar theme, “Performing Indonesia,” will be co-taught by Kaja McGowan, Associate Professor of Art History, and Ellen Avril, Judith H. Stoikov Curator of Asian Art at the museum. Library and museum collections of the performing arts of Indonesia will provide a wealth of possible stories that span almost eight decades. Students will be encouraged to explore the politics of display and shifting attitudes toward performance and rituals of spectatorship. They will also be invited to examine questions of heritage tourism, small-scale artisanal activity, provenance, repatriation, and community engagement. As an integral part of the course, curatorial interventions within the museum’s galleries will be staged.