Call for Applicants | 2020 Design Trust / RCA Fellowship
16. 3. 2020
Applications are invited for the 2020 Design Trust / RCA Fellowship in Design Curation. Extensively supported by Design Trust, this is a six-month to one-year opportunity for research, learning and engagement at the Royal College of Art in London. As of 10 April 2020, the call for applications for the 2020 Fellowship has been postponed. Please check this website and our social media for updates. Apply now.
The Design Trust / RCA Fellowship in Design Curation was established in 2017 and so far supported original research by five fellows. Fellows are given the opportunity to immerse themselves in the unique learning environment of Royal College of Art -- one of the world’s most influential institutions in Art and Design -- and take advantage of the experience of student life in the city of London.
In 2017, inaugural fellow Mina Song presented her experimental project “White (City) Cube”, a playful test on social behaviors that explored “the physicality of space and people’s mystification of space”, and addressed her research into design tactics for curatorial practice. In 2018, two individual emerging curators Carrie Chan and Sunnie Chan were awarded the fellowship. Carrie Chan’s study cumulated in “#Re-Fashioning The Internet” - a seminar and workshop that uses China as a case study to explore the Internet’s influence on the way we express ourselves through garments, and the way we create and innovate fashion and other wearables. Sunnie Chan curated the event “Design Curators Clinic”, a workshop that allows curators to gather and discuss curatorial practices. In 2019, the fellowship was awarded to Anne Zhou, who is currently undertaking her year-long fellowship, exploring the democratisation of design education and curatorial practices in the greater China region.
About Design Trust / RCA Fellowship
The fellowship was established to address the burgeoning field of design curating in Hong Kong and the region in a global context, and its place within the interdisciplinary curatorial field (such as the growth of new institutions devoted to design, the presence of design in art museums, biennales and cultural festivals and other new platforms for public engagement with/through design, including urban development and archives). It enables scholars to carry out research at the RCA, supported by a tailored programme of academic training designed to broaden their knowledge and skills in curatorial practice, theory and understanding of design.
Left: 2017 Fellow Mina Song exploring the historic South Kensington neighborhood surrounding the Royal College of Art
Right: White (City) Cube, exhibition by 2017 Fellow Mina Song at RCA’s White City campus