CCA Graduate Awarded Exceptional Promise Visa for Potential to Become Leader in Humanities
Curating Contemporary Art graduate Georgia Muenster has been awarded a UK visa for Exceptional Promise. This prestigious and highly sought after visa is granted to those deemed by the UK Home Office – following endorsement from a selected, competent UK body (in this case, the Arts Council) – to have the potential to become a world leader in their field.Â
The award recognises individuals who are professionally engaged in producing works of outstanding quality and have a track record at a high level in at least one country other than their country of residence. Georgia, who hails from the USA, is now entitled to live and work in the UK for five years, with the possibility of extending her visa for another five years immediately following. For her application, Georgia was sponsored by the Arts Council, with whom she will continue to have contact during her stay in order to explore opportunities for engagement.Â
Prior to her studies at the RCA, Georgia spent five years working for a number of arts organisations in New York City, including museums and commercial galleries. Significantly, she served as the Curatorial Fellow of Flux Factory, a Queen’s-based not-for-profit arts community space that supports and promotes emerging artists through residencies, exhibitions and collaborative opportunities, with a focus to foster sustainable artist networks and creative forces in NYC.
A desire to take her career and expertise to the next level led Georgia to Curating Contemporary Art at the RCA, where her practice thrived in the critically engaged and supportive atmosphere. During her time in CCA, she curated a film programme around notions of ‘psychogeography’, entitled Navigations, at the Hackney Picturehouse, as well as being a core part of the team behind Black Box Formula, for the CCA graduate show. The exhibition examined notions of input and output – technological, artistic, commercial, psychological – via the idea of the ‘black box’, as theorised within cybernetics: an exploration of the way that cybernetics and the digital intersect with art.Â
Maintaining a commitment to curatorial projects both inside and outside of the RCA, Georgia contributed a film screening to the Show 2014 hub in Jay Mews and served on the editorial board of the CCA end-of-year publication, before spending the summer in New York to work on Flux Factory’s twentieth anniversary exhibition, Homecoming. She also served as assistant curator on a major exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, Concert Hall, which focused on new curatorial talent.
In light of her demonstrated ability and skilfully achieved ventures both at College and further afield, Georgia was strongly encouraged – by Head of Programme Professor Victoria Walsh and tutor Dr Grant Watson, as well as international student support staff at the College – to apply under the UK Home Office Tier 1 visa for Exceptional Promise.
The Royal College of Art is able to provide support and advice about the options available to international students following the conclusion of their studies, and eagerly encourages international practitioners and researchers to consider the context of the College, its history of global excellence in art and design across sectors and disciplines, as a crucial and invaluable form of support in the process of applying for a post-study visa. Staff at the RCA are committed to maintaining a student body in which diversity of background and experience strengthens cultural exchange both at home and abroad.
Professor Walsh says: ‘We’re delighted that Georgia has secured the Tier 1 visa status in the Exceptional Talent category. This not only confirms the value and contribution of the skills, knowledge and experience that Georgia will bring to her future work in the UK, but also the important recognition of the role of young international curators in sustaining and developing the creative vibrancy and international relevance of UK culture.’
The Royal College Art recognises that the possibility to remain in the UK to work, to continue to build on the networks and communities developed over a period of engaged study and practice alike, is an essential concern for international students. The award of an Exceptional Promise visa to a dedicated and skilled student like Georgia is an exciting and promising development in the ways in which the RCA is able to aid students by fostering an enriching, high-level career-path, as well as providing necessary formal institutional endorsements.
Looking ahead at the five years that have been granted her, Georgia plans to continue to explore the fabric of London, she explains: ‘The exhibitions I take on tend to involve the built environment in one way or another, within or without the gallery setting, and I’d love to work with more public space and mapping.’ She has also taken on the role of Welfare Coordinator at You Me Bum Bum train, and is additionally working towards a number of projects in Europe and the UK, including an experimental educational initiative in Copenhagen, Utopia School, and a large-scale artist commission in Aarhus.Â