New Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance Gets Grant

Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance has been awarded a four-year, $100,000 grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to support the participation of low-income students and students of color in ICPP’s Master’s and Certificate programs through the ICPP Scholarship Fund.

Founded in 2010, the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance is a center for the academic study of the presentation and contextualization of contemporary performance, and offers an interdisciplinary, graduate-level education in innovative and relevant curatorial approaches to developing and presenting time-based art. The Institute, housed at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, now offers a Master of Arts in Performance Curation, which will launch in July 2015, in addition to a ten-month, post-graduate Certificate, now in its fourth year.


“We are extremely grateful for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's critical support for the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance's expanded offerings,” said ICPP Director Samuel A. Miller. “These funds will allow us to significantly enhance access to both our Master's and Certificate programs.”

This generous grant will increase ICPP’s financial aid and scholarship offerings over the next four years, starting with the inaugural class of the Master’s program. During this time, ICPP will continue to work with Danspace Project and ICPP faculty at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, and Wesleyan University, as well as with independent artists and curators, to concentrate recruitment efforts on low-income people, people of color, and people living and working outside of major metropolitan centers, by arranging talks, panels, and information sessions at conferences and gatherings across the country.

“The Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance has quickly established itself as critical in developing curatorial leadership for the future,” says Ben Cameron, Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. “We are delighted to support their work and to help insure that this training will be available and affordable to working professionals and lower income candidates who otherwise might miss this extraordinary opportunity.”
 

The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people's lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, and child well-being, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke's properties. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation previously provided founding support for ICPP through its 2011-2013 National Arts Projects grant to ICPP’s partner, New York’s Danspace Project.

ICPP is committed to being accessible to a wide range of artists, curators, presenters, writers, and academics from across the country and the globe, and, most importantly, from a wide range of backgrounds and institutions. ICPP faculty and staff believe a diverse, inclusive student body is essential to ensuring a variety of perspectives, experiences, and aspirations, and to enriching classroom discussion and expanding the reach of students’ work in the field.


ICPP’s focus on equity and inclusion is strategically in line with Wesleyan’s initiatives to promote a healthy, thriving campus climate, and a community of excellence. ICPP works in partnership with Wesleyan University and partners in the field to develop initiatives designed to support the inclusion and success of all students, especially students from historically underrepresented and marginalized backgrounds

For more information about the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance, please visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/icpp.