Julia Marchand

"The MFA Curating programme at Goldsmiths is devoted to individual research whilst facilitating group discussions on specific themes. Having previously received an MA in History of Art, where I undertook very specific research on tribal art, I thought it was the right move to embrace the curatorial field. Working in an institution was not my objective when I started. I was looking at a programme that could provide me with the tools and the feedback to develop my own area of research, which I could then translate into curatorial terms. What I learnt throughout the process was a different story. I am now working in a major arts institution!

My overall experience of the course was very good. Not only the teachers but also our peers, our friends who partook in the group discussions outlined above. But it is a give-and-take relationship : if you don’t share ideas, if you don’t argue, then  you don’t gain much from that programme. It allowed me to make mistakes as a « curator beginner » and that’s ok. I think we tend to see the Goldsmiths MFA Curating programme as very serious (which is, undoubtedly) but it also gives you a fantastic framework to test out ideas.

I was offered my first institutional position in 2015, just two months after receiving my MFA, at the Fondation Vincent van Gogh in Arles. There I have helped build the public and exhibition programme, including  curating my own show ‘Siècles noirs : James Ensor & Alexander Kluge.’ Being able to speak English, which improved significantly while I was at Goldsmiths, is also a bonus. Outside the Fondation I have set up my own curatorial programme with Extramentale in Arles, which looks at adolescence in contemporary art. The show with Kluge and Ensor is very symptomatic of what a former MFA Goldsmiths curating student could do: highly discursive, digging into Critical Theory as much as  forms of the grotesque in media.

I would advise current students not to live alone: get a houseshare with thinkers, students and artists and make exhibitions whenever you can. I often say ‘il n’y a pas de petits projets’ (badly translated as « small undertakings do not exist ») : if you do one thing, it leads to the next. As the MFA provides an amazing body of texts and theoretical frameworks, do make an exhibition that can implement these ideas, or experiment in other ways which can’t be developed in a classroom context."

Image: Siècles noirs - James Ensor & Alexander Kluge, curated by Julia Marchand, Fondations Vincent van Gogh, Arles, Photo by: François Deladerrière