The PinchukArtCentre selected the participants of its new Curatorial Platform - a two year full time study combining a theoretical and practical training. The selection committee decided upon five from more than 130 applicants. The first Curatorial Platform participants are: Lizaveta German (23 years, Kyiv), Tatiana Kochubynska (26 years, Kyiv), Oleksandr Mykhed (23 years, Kyiv), Maria Lanko (25 years, Kyiv), Kateryna Radchenko (27 years, Odesa).

These selected applicants will start their residency in January 2012 and will be awarded a monthly scholarship of UAH 4000.

For their practical training the participants will receive a step by step experience imbedded into the structure of PinchukArtCentre. They will be given the possibility of having practice on all fields of exhibition making and art-handling. The theoretical training given by leading international experts includes reading materials for self study and 8 workshops of 2 days, each year and a research project.

The program encompasses three main aspects:

• Theoretical: guest lectures by international professionals and seminars organized by by Dr. Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen, rector of the New Design University St.Pölten, in collaboration with Christine Haupt-Stummer, M.A.;
• Research project where trainees will be offered to conduct in-depth research on different subjects related to Ukrainian art context;
• Integration into the PinchukArtCentre team: a step by step experience imbedded into the structure of PinchukArtCentre. 

The fields of the trainee’s specialisation include: Curating, Exhibition Management, Communication, Education, Publication, Marketing, Technique, Sponsoring.

The program has been developed by Dr. Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen, rector of the New Design University St.Pölten and the head of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna
(2002-2011), in collaboration with by Christine Haupt-Stummer, M.A. and in close cooperation with Eckhard Schneider, General Director of the PinchukArtCentre as well as Björn Geldhof, artistic manager of the PinchukArtCentre.

Curatorial Platform is a training program of the PinchukArtCentre based on the high institutional competence as well as the experience of its team of professionals offering access to the best practice and knowledge. All participants will be introduced to the different fields of exhibitions curating practices while working on national and international projects. They will be offered lectures, workshops and discussions by leading international experts all over the world.

With its curatorial platform, the PinchukArtCentre offers a chance for the new generation of Ukrainians, giving them an opportunity to develop their competence on a high international professional level with prospect of growing into a museum professional in the field of contemporary art.

Christine Haupt-Stummer studied art history at Vienna University and at the Freie Universität Berlin. Between 1996 and 2001 she organized seminars, workshops and excursions for the Viennese Institut für Kulturwissenschaften and its curatorial study program. During this time she was also working for the bogner.cultural consulting doing projects in museum development in Austria and abroad. In 2001 Haupt-Stummer founded “section.a”, an art and design consulting office doing exhibitions and artistic projects for public and private institutions. Haupt-Stummer teaches since 2002 for instance at the University of Klagenfurt or the Wiener Kunstschule. Since 2006 she is a member of the faculty of the curatorial study program‚ ecm/educating, curating, managing’ of the University of Applied Art, Vienna.

Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen studied linguistics, philosophy and communication design in Cologne, Constanz and Wuppertal. In the eighties he worked as an art critique in Cologne and started to teach and do exhibitions. In the nineties he was the director of the Kunstverein in Hamburg, where he experimented with new forms of exhibition design (“backstage”, “fast forward”) and showed a lot of today’s well known artist in an early stage of their career Schmidt-Wulffen was the head of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna between 2002 and 2011 and is now rector of the New Design University St.Pölten. He taught at Kunsthochschule Hamburg, Columbia University, Bard College among others and was advisor to museums (mesée d’art moderne, Luxembourg) as well as to universities (Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Free University Bozen, Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen). Since 2008 Schmidt-Wulffen is also the co-editor of ‘Exhibition Histories’ a book series on the history of exhibitions in 20^th century done by Afterall, London.