Highlights Cultural Analysis

Since 2008, ZHdK has been offering a Master's programme in Curatorial Studies. But just like the artistic practices themselves, museums are likewise undergoing a profound transformation currently. The Department for Cultural Analysis has therfore seized the opportunity of ZHdK's overarching curriculum reform (Major/ Minor) to introduce a newly designed Major in Curatorial Studies in 2023.

The new Major in Curatorial Studies enables future curators to rethink existing institutions and formats and to develop new forms of presentation, mediation and knowledge production. Most courses and research literature of are in English, the international network is excellent, and the course is recommended by the International Council of Museums (ICOM).

In 2023, students of the Master's programme Transdisciplinary Studies in the Arts and activists from the Termokiss Cultural Centre in Kosovo came together in Zurich to create the second edition of the magazine 'Potpuri'. The magazine, which was first launched in 2022, is the result of a collaboration initiated within the framework of the project ‘Prishtina-Lab’. Supported by the ZHdK Fund for Intercultural Faculty and Mid-Tier Staff Projects, 'Prishtina-Lab' saw students going on a field trip to Manifesta in Prishtina. 

Working collaboratively on the second issue of the magazine, the group spent an intensive week exploring the topic of “self-publishing” and visiting several editorial offices and archives (WOZ, Material, Fabrikzeitung, K-Set). Adelina Gashi, a freelance journalist, and Binak Kelmendi from the former Kosovar newspaper Rilindja gave talks and looked into the prerequisites of establishing a new print medium in the context of Kosovo. A core interest of the project was to create a sustainable magazine and a link to the Kosovar diaspora in Switzerland in a young country whose print media have all perished in the last decade. Potpuri has today become an independent publishing platform.