Co-funded by Arts Council England and the Royal College of Art, our department established the first postgraduate programme in Britain to specialise in curatorial practice as it relates to contemporary art. Our MA course provides a professional preparation for exhibition curators, arts administrators, and those who wish to work with artists to present art outside a gallery setting. We also offer a critical examination of curatorial practice, with special emphasis on the selection and presentation of exhibitions of contemporary art, the programming of public galleries, and the commissioning of art for the public realm. Each year graduating students work together to curate an exhibition. This year’s exhibition entitled Various Small Fires took the concept of the exhibition back to basics - interrogating the materiality of its spatial support, the gallery. We are developing a programme of research focussing on curating the postcolonial, the moving image and the public realm.