Curation

“Hey Winston! Can you help to curate an upcoming programme?”, the conversation began. I remember thinking out loud to myself, “Curate? What’s the difference with facilitation?”

There began my search. Curation is a terminology used more synonymously with perhaps museums. We often hear of a curator who is a custodian of a collection in a museum. He or she is a content specialist charged with assembling, cataloguing, managing and displaying exhibits and collections. Going back to the root word “cura”, which in Latin means “to take care”, curation of late has also been used closely with the word “content”. Content curation is really about the gathering, organizing and (usually associated with) online presentation of content related to a particular theme or topic.

So, how did I become involved in curation? Given that public governance is a very niche and specialised field, a curator is often brought in to add value to a programme. These programmes, often lasting a week or more, is often put together using various subject matter experts. To help participants make greater sense of the content, a curator weaves the different topics together using various facilitative tools and techniques. It helps tremendously therefore, for this curator to be familiar (but may not necessarily be a subject matter expert) with the various content.

The best compliment a curator can receive is when participants, having heard from speakers from various fields, comment that the programme has gone on seamlessly and that they have easily digested the complexities of the topics shared.