Introduction to Cultural Management
The Cultural Management program in the School of Culture and Communication is made up of three postgraduate courses that focus on the cultural industry: Art Curatorship, Arts Management and Cinema Management. This alignment of programs allows the existing courses to be greatly enhanced in terms of teaching and elective offerings as well as research pathways. Each of these programs offers internationally recognised postgraduate coursework degrees:
Art Curatorship
The Master in Art Curatorship provides a balanced combination of historical and theoretical subjects with a range of more practically oriented offerings that address specific museum activities such as collection management; exhibition development and interpretation; and conservation. This combination enhances the students' understanding of the broader cultural context in which the art museum sector operates, both in Australia and internationally, while also ensuring that students are able to relate theory to practice.
The Art Curatorship program has been operating as a postgraduate degree for the past eighteen years, it was established with the advice and financial support of the arts community and the museum sector in 1990. Academic staff members have research backgrounds in, and first-hand experience of, the arts and museum sectors, while the program also draws upon the expertise of the professional staff of the University's Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation. Students are given the opportunity to work with the staff and holdings of the University of Melbourne's significant and extensive cultural collections. In addition, leading professionals from Australian art museums and arts organisations contribute to the teaching programs to ensure their relevance to the sector.
The course structure reflects this expertise in its tiers of graduated and complementary subject offerings, which include:
- Four compulsory professional 'Curatorship' subjects (History and Philosophy of Museums; Issues and Practice A; Conservation; and a practical internship, which is an invaluable means of working within the arts and museum sectors in Australia and abroad. The strong relationships with industry built up over many years of internship placement often lead to further professional opportunities).
- One curatorial elective (chosen from three specialist 'exhibition development' subjects: Asian Curatorship; Virtual Print Room; Curatorship B).
- A range of elective subjects in art history and arts management that allow students to develop individualised skills and specialisations that reflect the diversity of the sector.
- The option of a research thesis (i.e. students can undertake industry-relevant research projects that also offer a higher-research degree career path). In the past decade, several students have gone on from the MA coursework program to complete MA Research and PhD degrees.
The Art Curatorship program has undergone considerable development and refinement during its eighteen-year history. First conceived as a one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Curatorship and Museum Management, the course now offers a Masters coursework program in Art Curatorship that is unique in this country. This program is tailored to meet the needs of arts and museum professionals wishing to upgrade their qualifications through advanced study; or graduates interested in entering the sector through practically oriented subjects.
Arts Management
Arts Management studies at the University of Melbourne offer vocationally orientated courses to prepare students for a management career in the arts industry, including the performing and visual arts, cultural policy and arts administration. The program focuses on the relationship of management to creative production and presentation with particular attention to the unique characteristics of management in a creative environment. Through two levels of study, a Postgraduate Diploma and a Masters, students develop critical insights into the policy, legal, financial and broad cultural contexts in which the arts operate in Australia and other countries.
Arts Management courses aim to prepare graduates to work in diverse arts industry contexts, from large organisations and government departments to self-employment. Arts professionals and academics teach across the two courses, sharing invaluable insights and expertise, as well as creating opportunities for the students to network with arts managers.
Our teaching is informed by the distinctiveness of the arts industry, namely its hybrid character as both an industry in which commercial and non-commercial creative production occurs and an environment in which ideas and identities are formed and performed. The courses therefore seek to deliver grounded subjects that equip students for a career within the management structures of the industry together with challenging theoretical and analytical content that assists our graduates to participate in the ethical, political and philosophical dimensions of cultural practices.
Cinema Management
Cinema Management's Master of Arts (Cinema Management) is designed to provide students with the necessary knowledge and skills to work in the film culture industry. It is not intended to train students in the art of becoming a practitioner; instead it will train students to work in one of the many film culture bodies locally and internationally. These include: the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI); Screen Sound (Canberra); film festival bodies; commercial mainstream exhibitors (Village, Buena Vista International) art house exhibitors (Cinema Nova), Film Australia, the Australian Film Institute; and the Australian Film Commission. Opportunities also exist for our students in international film festivals, in moving image museums and archives and within distribution and exhibition in international markets. Students will study the structure of the film culture industry, the nature of feature film production, film festival cultures, arts management, marketing, publicity and new media. A key feature of the course is an industry work placement in which students learn relevant skills in the work place. There is opportunity for students to undertake their work placement overseas.