From the Archive: MVS Curatorial Studies

On the occasion of the 2025 Graduating Exhibitions, the Art Museum presents a rare glimpse into the archive of the Master of Visual Studies (MVS) in Curatorial Studies program at the University of Toronto. The exhibition shares print and online documentation of Curatorial Studies students’ final projects since the program’s inception in 2008, when it was established as a counterpart within the MVS Studio program, founded in 2003.  

Unique in Canada, the MVS Curatorial Studies program offers each graduating student the opportunity and financial support to develop their own full-fledged curatorial project in the context of the University’s internationally renowned public-facing contemporary art museum. Emergent in a then-new field of postsecondary curatorial studies, the program has immersed participants in an environment devoted to the exploration of historical and contemporary approaches to curation as well as developments in contemporary art, theory and critical writing. With access to a wide array of related fields of study in one of the world’s leading research institutions, graduate projects are energized by a range of interdisciplinary partnerships and lines of inquiry.  

The curatorial projects documented in this exhibition owe greatly to the Department of Art History and, more recently, the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, as well as many internal and external advisors and guest lecturers. They could not have been produced without the support of the Blackwood Gallery (UTM) and Doris McCarthy Gallery (UTSC) in the program’s early years and the substantial efforts of the Art Museum team throughout. Special gratitude is due to all the artists who generously participated in these exhibitions, past and present. Above all, it is the graduates of the program we acknowledge here, whose cogent engagement with art and artists has created new stories, new modalities of curatorial work, and transformational exhibitions within the Art Museum.