The Curatorial Programme is headed by Ann Demeester as programme director, and developed in collaboration with its coordinators Moosje Goosen and Nathalie Hartjes. Moosje Goosen is also an independent writer and contributor to Metropolis M and Frieze Magazine, a.o. Nathalie Hartjes is also a freelance project-coordinator and is currently producer of Kunstfort Asperen 2011. 

The participants of the Curatorial Programme are supported and coached by a large team of tutors, all experts in their own field of curatorial or artistic practice. While using their own curatorial experience and textual material as a starting point, the tutors – who have backgrounds as philosophers, curators, art historians and artists, and therefore represent a wide variety of practices in the field of contemporary art and curating – examine particular tendencies and developments in the field of contemporary visual art which they consider striking or particularly relevant. 

The tutors are present at all the general presentations during the year, offer guidance and feedback on the formulation of the final project of the Curatorial Programme, and each individual tutor has selected a thematic area which she or he explores in a series of three to six sessions.

De Appel tutorial team consists of: 

• Floris Alkemade (NL), architect and urban planner, previously associated with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)
• Mieke Bal (NL), cultural theorist and critic, based in Amsterdam
• Liesbeth Bik (NL), artist based in Rotterdam
• Ann Demeester (BE/NL), director of de Appel arts centre and Head of the Curatorial Programme
• Charles Esche (UK/NL), director of Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven
• Annie Fletcher (IR/NL), curator at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and co-initiator of the platform, ‘If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution’
• Henk Slager (NL), philosopher/ dean of HKU, Utrecht
• Lisette Smits (NL), former director Casco, Utrecht amd curator at art space Marres, Maastricht
• Jan Verwoert (DE), critic and curator based in Berlin

Guest lecturers

A large part of the Curatorial Programme is dedicated to thematic workshops that are given by a selection of international guest lecturers focusing on topics such as ‘A short history of (Western) exhibitions’, ‘Working off-site’, ‘Institutional Critique’, ‘Commissioning’ and ‘Globalisation’. Guest teachers of the Curatorial Programme are currently: Gerardo Mosquera, Teresa Gleadowe, Rudi Fuchs, Paul O’ Neill, Nina Möntmann and Jan Hoet.  

In addition to the more intensive thematic workshops, the Curatorial Programme invites international guest lecturers to meet the participants of the programme to discuss a topic of their expertise. These meetings are organised in the curriculum on an irregular basis to maintain a discursive flexibility and guarantee that the Curatorial Programme is able to respond to current issues in contemporary art. 

Previous guest lecturers have been: Carolyn Christov Bakargiev, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Carlos Basualdo, Saskia Bos, Frederique Bergholz, Marie de Brugerolle, Jeroen Boomgaard, Claire Bishop, Dan Cameron, Binna Choi, Peggy Phelan, Alex Farquharson, Nina Folkersma, Anselm Franke, Marina Abramovic, Deborah Cherry, Kasper König, Tom van Gestel, Nicoline van Harskamp, Eva Meyer-Hermann, Donald Preziosi, Maria Hlavajova, Jens Hoffmann, Christian Jankowski, Xander Karskens, Maxine Kopsa, Lars Bang Larsen, Raimundas Malasauskas, Marga van Mechelen, Edi Muka, Ann Goldstein, Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen, Edi Rama, Sven Lütticken, Jalal Touffic, Margriet Schavemaker, Tirdad Zolgadr, Basak Senova, Dieter Roelstraete, Paulo Herkenhoff, Simon Sheikh, Seth Siegelaub, Anna Tilroe, Barbara Visser, Florian Waldvogel, Ulay, Huib Haye van der Werf, Rein Wolfs, Nathalie Zonnenberg and many more.