The curatorial & the display of Poscolonial history

Abstract

This stay at the MRes Arts: Exhibition Studies at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (University of the Arts, London), due from November 2014 to July 2015, has as main objective to research by virtue of the FAPESP Postdoctoral scholarship on the "representation of history in the museums" and the role of contemporary art on revitalizing those narratios. The elected centre currently runs an academic programme on "Exhibition Studies", which centers upon the existing relationships between curatorship, social transformation and postcolonial perspective. My research Project pursues to fuse those three fields with yet a fourth one, that arises under the foundation of my FAPESP scholarship: namely, the representation of history in Brazilian museums and the related contributions of Contemporary Art to rethink these ways to represent and social transformation. That fusion will permit me to comprehend specific working models to carry out my analysis as well as to develop an active proposal of critical reflection and intervention into this narrative from the very special domain of contemporary art and the field of curating. Since I started my post-doc in Sao Paulo I could find some lacks in my education to confront and analize case studies based on curating. I decided to ask for this BEPE scholarship because from Brazil I could find diverse bibliography but the distance makes dificult to have contact with collavorative curatorial projects and to understand its problematics and challenges. I also found I didn't have some tools to analize the display itself of exhibitions and I have dificulties to hace access to Museographic global debates in relation to representation of history as is a very specific subject. In the course of this year, I would like to participate in the various debates and seminars that are to be held at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Furthermore, I would like to teach some class sessions in order to share my personal advances on curatorship within the Brazilian context, and to join the profusion of related that will take place in London. The chief kernels of my research will be concerned with: the representation of history, curatorial processes and the postcolonial perspective. (AU)