The deadline for uploading programme details has now passed
Thank you to everyone who has submitted events to the Curating Cambridge programme. We are very excited to be working with such a great range of organisations and individuals.
If you have any queries regarding events that you submitted, please email .
Guidelines for using Curating Cambridge icon
Where possible we ask that all activity taking place as part of Curating Cambridge is marked with the icon, both online and in print.
Find the guidelines here and download the icons below.
The background
Working with diverse partners Curating Cambridge will consist of an exciting public programme including exhibitions, events, performances, workshops, trails and digital projects. Through this five week programme we will explore stories of the city and its treasures, our relationships to these things and places, different ways of telling these stories, and the processes of curation.
The University of Cambridge Museums are in their final year of a three year programme funded by Arts Council England. Curating Cambridge is the culmination of this funding programme and is about looking back at what we have achieved but it is also about looking forwards to where we would like to go next, how we can develop existing partnerships as well as making new and exciting connections across the city. Our starting point for Curating Cambridge is that the city is home to world class collections from across the arts and sciences. Our collections tell stories about our connections to these objects, one another and the rest of the world. The collections in museums can connect you to the past, or to an idea, as can a more personal connection to an object in your daily life. For us curating is to select, to organise and to care for things, but it is also to tell a story or to ask a question, to pause for reflection or to enjoy a link to those who came before us.
Through the programme Curating Cambridge brings together a range of approaches and perspectives from across the city that will engage people in the city with Cambridge’s rich culture and heritage and explore these central themes:
- our relationships to the things and places that surround us;
- the stories and connections that add value and understanding to these things and places;
- the stories of Cambridge and its treasures, looking to the past and to the future;
- the process and forms of curation
As well as asking these questions in our museums we will be asking them in people’s homes, in our public spaces and joining with cultural partners and their practice, providing a wide range of opportunities for people to engage with our collections and to take their part in telling our collective stories.
In partnership with Festival of Ideas
Curating Cambridge is a five week programme of events and activity that has been developed by the University of Cambridge Museums with the University’s Public Engagement team, building on the museums’ established contribution to the Festival of Ideas. Curating Cambridge is the first time the museums have led the development of a city wide coordinated and thematically linked cultural celebration to coincide with the Festival.
Please do contact if you have any questions about Curating Cambridge: our city, our stories, our stuff.