BA: Criticism, Communication and Curation is an intertextual and varied course. It has the challenging role of being a humanities-based degree, situated within an art school. Because of it’s unique positioning, the future aspirations of students vary from fashions buyers, art house dealers and art history scholars to event producers, policy makers, journalists and urban planners; this multitude of careers cannot be encapsulated by a one single product.

Previous years have produced a catalogue of the exhibition, to document graduate’s work. However, for the CCC 2012 Degree show, working alongside a group of BA Graphic Design: Print and Digital students, we have produced a new publication; Cura.

Cura takes the form of a fluxus publication, with an accompanying website, both of which look to approach publishing as a three dimensional practice; an arena where the platform is chosen to suit the content, not the other way around. Both components examine the changing cultural landscape of curation, looking beyond the traditional context of a museum or gallery.

We have used the printed platform to unpick the concept of ‘curation’; its conception, manifestation, development and execution, to deduce the common thread that runs throughout the various reappropriations of the term and multitude of discourses, which have permeated our degree.

As a culminating gesture of our undergraduate studies, we feel it is important that Cura is situated within the current cultural environment, where changing concepts of curation have resulted in a variety of new socio-cultural spheres. Thus, it was a conscious action not to focus on the traditional notions of curatorial practice, but instead, highlight the various nuances within the field. In an attempt to bolster the text and introduce it into an equilibrium of both context and practice, not only do we discuss curation, but we employ a curatorial practice in our editorial approach.

Cura, 2012

Cura Online is an expansion of the CURA publication, available throughout Central Saint Martin’s 2012 Degree Show. In the process of putting together a publication, we wanted to expand on the content by creating a visual set of layers, navigated by the reader, in order to illustrate the diversity of curation.

Content is not transferred from print to online, but specifically edited to accompany the context. As the interpretation of the content is determined by its context, we feel that our online presence should not be a perfect copy of the publication. Tweaking, expanding, conceding and hyperlinking text are all simple details that enhance the reading experience. We understand the constraints of printed matter and how the digital can balance these issues. By adding in a dimension of networked content, the reader is given the option of exploring the discourse surrounding the article, opening up a new realm of content. This process is incorporated into the site’s design, by interactively embedding previews of linked content. The design not only supports the content, but it uses the concept to create an interactive background.

curaonline.co.uk has taken the space between the reader and the publication and manipulated the content by altering the framework and exploring design as a curatorial medium.

Martha is an experimental font borne out of a collaboration between BA Criticism, Communication and Curation and BA Graphic Design. By using 37 points (in reference to the number of students in the BA Criticism, Communication and Curation year of 2012) to produce a word, a family of four weights have been introduced so that it may be mixed and matched to produce a word resulting with an accurate number of points.

Download the Martha font family