Brasil Futuro and the forms of democracy: reports of an art/educator-anthropologist in a photographic perspective
Museums and cultural institutions have increasingly become one of the stages on which contemporary debates are amplified. The curatorial proposals make use of this prominence of museums as a platform for the promotion of aesthetic fruition experiences in the dialogue between the public and the works.
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These experiences coincide with recent historical events, such as the growth of the extreme right in Brazil. The museum was one of the most attacked institutions and had its social and political role in the defense of minorities and diversity in the institution strongly affected.
Institutional and historical transformations directly affect the work of educators in museums, as one of their main functions is to propose mediation experiences in a perspective of sharing experiences lived in museums and cultural institutions.
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One of the questions to start this conversation is: how to do research in museums as a documentary practice? What are the tools and methods for participant observation as a mediation practice with audiences? These questions crosse different social actors in which educators are directly involved. Understanding the movement of these actors and the effects of meetings on mediation is the purpose of this research.
Rádio Educativa
Considering the concept of mediation as research and documentary practice, the Educational Program team of the National Museum of the Republic created Rádio Educativa, a podcast series exploring different aspects of the exhibitions.
For this specific series called "Conversation with curators," we invited the creators of the National Museum of the Republic exhibitions for a brief discussion on the curatorial proposals.
Lilia Schwarcz is a historian and anthropologist. She is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at USP, since 2015, she has been an assistant curator for stories and narratives at Masp and is a columnist for the newspaper Nexo.
Academia de Curadoria is a research group composed of researchers from different cities in Brazil with multiple skills. Its proposal is to be a laboratory for curatorial practices and art criticism in contemporary art, in addition to offering support to cultural institutions, foundations, independent spaces, museums, galleries, and artists.
Ralph Gehre is an artist and independent curator. He was born in Mato Grosso do Sul and has lived and worked in Brasília since 1962. He graduated in Architecture and Urbanism at UnB. He currently works with painting, visual media, drawing, and photography.
Carlos Lin is an independent curator and visual artist, historian. Master in theory and history of contemporary Brazilian art, professor of art history, art educator, poet, writer, and essayist. Carlos Praude is a researcher, artist, professor, and software developer. He holds a postdoctoral, doctorate, and master's degree (2010) in Art and Technology from the Postgraduate Program in Art at UnB.
Divino Sobral is an artist, researcher, and independent curator. He writes critical texts published in Brazil and several other countries. His work, which moves between drawing, painting, writing, object, sculpture, installation, and performance, brings together elements of his personal memory intertwined with mythology.
Sabrina Moura is a curator, researcher, and writer. She received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Campinas. She has conceived and organized seminars and public programs presented by a number of institutions, including Videobrasil, SESC-SP, Goethe Institut, and the World Biennial Forum, among others.
Webinars
The webinars are free online training activities that provide a space for dialogue with educators, artists, and researchers.
We start with reflections on the role of art, the museum, and education at this time, to address issues of heritage, mediation, audiences, digital culture, periphery, and fascism.
Sabrina Fernandes is a sociologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Advanced Center for Latin American Studies (CALAS) in Mexico, where she researches just transitions and the Anthropocene. She is a senior research advisor at the Alameda Institute and a member of the steering committee of the Global Ecosocialist Network. She founded the political communication and scientific dissemination project Tese Onze and is the author of several articles and books, including Se quiser mudar o mundo: um guia político para quem se importa (2020).
Leno Veras is a curator, researcher, and professor. He obtained his Ph.D. in Communication and Culture from the School of Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, with a doctoral internship at the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Studies at the University of London. He is the General Coordinator of the Acervos Futuros program, via the National Council for Scientific Development of the Ministry of Science and Technology, together with the Museum of Tomorrow. He is also Associate Curator at the Fundação Itaú's Media Lab, at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas' Knowledge Publishing House, and at the Directorate of Information for South America at the Goethe-Institut, where he develops an ongoing program with the German National Digital Library.
Suzy Santos is an Educator, Historian, and Museologist. Bachelor and Graduate in History (FFLCH/USP), Master in Museology (PPGMus/USP), and Postgraduate in Community-Based Cultural Policies (FLACSO). His master's research, entitled Ecomuseums and Community Museums in Brazil: Exploratory Study of New Museological Possibilities?, analyzed the creation and management processes of Brazilian ecomuseums and community museums, seeking to understand the museological concepts linked to these types of museums and the relationship between practices and theories. She coordinates the Cultural Project Pimenteiros e Pimenteiras do Vermelhão and the Community Museum of Jardim Vermelhão.
Igor Simões has a Ph.D. in Visual Arts-History, Theory, and Art Criticism-PPGAV-UFRGS. He is an Adjunct Professor of History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Methodology and Practice of Teaching Art at the UERGS. He was Assistant Curator of Biennale 12 (Bienal do Mercosul- Educational Curator)). He is a member of the curatorship committee of the National Association of Researchers in Plastic Arts-ANPAP, the Educational Nucleus UERGS-MARGS, and the collection committee of the Museu de Arte do RS-MARGS. He works with the articulations between exhibition, film editing, art histories and racialization in Brazilian art and the visibility of black subjects in the visual arts.
Camila Alves is a clinical psychologist, specializing in Reichian Body Therapy. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF). Her master's degree dissertation was entitled: What if we experimented more? A non-technical handbook on accessibility in cultural spaces? She has been working in the area of culture for ten years and is currently doing training and consulting. She is also a professor of the Psychology course at Faculdades Integradas Maria Thereza (FAMATH), located in the city of Niterói. Her current research interests are in the field of disability studies, at the interface between art, culture, gender, and animals.
Diogo de Moraes Silva is a researcher, cultural mediator, visual artist, editor, and cultural technical assistant at Sesc São Paulo, in the area of Studies and Development. As a mediator, he collaborates with the Extrainstitutional Mediation group. In 2017, he defended his master's research at ECA-USP, under the title “Publics in Emergence: ways of using institutional offers and artistic practices”. He is a doctoral candidate at PGEHA-USP, with the research “(Contra) publics of the visual arts in times of cultural wars: readings of the detracting reception through documentary practices”. Since 2022, he has been a member of the advisory board of Casa do Povo.
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Goiânia, GO, Brazil