Specializing Master in Planning Culture.
Teaching Plan.
- Venue
- Lessons will be held at POLI.design and at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
Introduction.
The Planning Culture Specializing Master extends the experience of the Master Eventi D'Arte, an initiative of the Università Cattolica Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, under the aegis of its Alta Scuola in Media, Comunicazione e Spettacolo, organized jointly with POLI.design, Politecnico di Milano.
Planning Culture, Progettare Cultura in Italian, trains professionals whose expertise will enable them to plan cultural events, such as exhibitions, installations, and public art projects, with a special eye to the visual arts, multimedia, and their relationship to the geographic area. Every cultural project is a complex system involving a series of players who take part in staging it: from the curator to the project manager, from the designer to those who take care of communication, fundraising and sponsorship, as well as the organizations hosting the project. Interaction and discussion among the various professionals who work together, each starting from a particular set of skills and point of view, help lend meaning and form to the cultural project.
Goals.
One of the Specializing Master main goals is to teach how to plan and choreograph the moves needed to build a coordinated cultural event that can use today’s language to explain complex disciplines and values, reaching out to a broad audience. In order for that to occur, the project requires both a solid grounding in the humanities to frame it in its historical and conceptual itinerary, which is the province of the faculty from the Università Cattolica Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia (School of Literature and Philosophy), and the design input that gives sensory shape to the audience’s experience of the installation, which is brought by the faculty from the Politecnico di Milano Design School.
Training is based on continuous dialogue with industry professionals and on constant practice to transmit the skills needed to build a cultural project. During the Master methods and tools for the design and project management intertwine, to provide updated models of creation and management of cultural interventions.
The curriculum is made up of 432 classroom hours (including 336 course hours, 96 hours of seminar and project work, i.e. supervised design tasks), 400 hours of fieldwork internship, and 668 hours of independent study and preparation for the final design project, in which an actual client submits a professional brief to the students. These learning modules allow Master’s students to gain a deeper understanding of the theory and practice of designing, managing, and publicizing art and culture events by recreating the very dynamics of real-world project work.
Professional Outcomes.
This Specializing Master provides students the professional qualifications for:
- project manager for cultural events held by public or private organizations,
- cultural planning manager for territorial development at local government agencies and public institutions,
- consultant for public relations strategies based on art events,
- independent curator.
Degree Awarded.
Upon completion of all courses in the curriculum and the final examination, students are awarded a Specializing Master Diploma in Planning Culture: Designer of art, culture and Design Projects for Enterprises, Cities, and Communities, issued jointly by Università Cattolica and Politecnico di Milano. The Specializing Master grants 60 CFU, equivalent to 60 ECTS. These credits may later be claimed within the framework of specialist degrees in fields related to the Specializing Master at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia and the Politecnico di Milano and applied to course requirements in the corresponding scientific and disciplinary subjects. The boards authorized for the purpose at the respective universities will evaluate such claims on a case-by-case basis.
Didactics.
The class schedule covers five days a week at the Milan campus of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Monday through Friday afternoons. Attendance is required for a minimum of 75% of classroom instruction hours.
The Specializing Master is made up of 1500 training hours overall: 432 in classes, seminars, and workshops or meetings with professionals, 400 in fieldwork internship, and 668 of supervised hands-on work, simulations, independent study, and preparation of midterm and final project work.
Didactic modules.
Learning Modules (30 credits total)
Taught by ALMED - Università Cattolica:
- Conceiving of Cultural Projects
- Contemporary Art and Visual Culture
- Cultural businesses and access to finance
Taught by POLI.design - Politecnico di Milano:
- Design and design thinking
- Design for Local Development
- Communication, new media and digital technologies
Seminars (10 credits total)
- Art interventions and processes of urban transformation
- Cultural tourism and identity of places
- Entrepreneurship and cultural innovation
- Budget and sustainability
- Fundraising and sponsorship
- Elements of Contemporary Aesthetics
- Media Theory
- Visual culture
- Museology
- Legislation of Cultural Heritage
- Exhibition design
- Visual design
- Media relations
- Team building
- Open Lectures
Project work (8 credits total)
- Project work - Midterm
- Project work – Final Exam
Internship.
At the end of the path there is a period of curricular internship of three months, to include the student in the real context of policy design, management and communication of cultural projects. The choice of internship for each student will be gauged on the basis of individual training profile and projects underway at enterprises and agencies available to take on interns.
Grading and Final Exam.
Each Specializing Master includes an exam with a grade on a thirty-point scale. Credits earned on a per-course basis may be subsequently applied towards recognition, upon related-field graduate enrollment. The final exam consists of presenting and defending the documentation of an event’s design and production that has been included in the candidate’s report on the internship experience.
Tour.
Planned meetings and tours to major exhibitions and events taking place in Milan, in addition to the Museum of the '900, Casa Museo Boschi di Stefano, Villa Necchi Campiglio, Fondazione Marconi, Italian Art, Hangar Bicocca, Mart (Rovereto - Trento).
Admission.
The application must be accompanied by:
- certificate of degree with grade and thesis title,
- detailed curriculum vitae with photograph,
- list of publications related to Master’s content,
- receipt for online payment of € 50.00 non refundable application fee.
Applicants are welcome to participate in selection for more than one Specializing Master. In such case copies of the required documents must be submitted separately for each program. In case of admission to more than one Specializing Master, applicants will be required to choose one for actual enrollment
Admission Requirements.
The Planning Culture Specializing Master is aimed Italian and foreign college graduates interested in developing specific know-how for conceiving and designing culture and art events. Such knowledge transfer is assured by continuous rapport with university professors and professional experts from ALMED, Università Cattolica Alta Scuola in Media, Comunicazione e Spettacolo and from POLI.design, Politecnico di Milano, whose experience of excellence in training for this field is rooted on both accounts in a solid tradition of several years. Curricular content covers the entire lifecycle of a cultural event, from concept to project management and from logistical organization to marketing and public relations.
Registration fee: € 50 to be paid in the manner specified in the online application. The fee is non-refundable.
Selection Criteria and Procedure.
An initial selection of candidates will be made on the basis of materials submitted with the application. Items evaluated include:
- grades upon graduation;
- relevance of transcript and thesis;
- related publications, if any;
- prior accomplishments in the field, if any.
Applications will be judged in order of receipt until all the seats will be provided. The maximum number of participants allowed is set at 25.
The Selection Committee reserves the right to modify the number of those admitted to the limit of 20% of the maximum number of seats provided.
Students who, according to the preselection, will be admitted to the talks, will be informed by the Secretariat about the date, time and place of the meetings.
Through the admission interview are evaluated:
- attitudes and personal skills of the candidate;
- titles are submitted whith enrollment;
- specific suitability of the applicant to the contents and the teaching program of the Master;
- Knowledge of languages, any professional experience or internships in the field and previous studies of the subject are considered privileged requirements.
