SPAH Seminar Series Week 5: Dr Alessandra Simões

Part of the SPAH Seminar Series, Alessandra Simões gives a talk on 'Revolution from the Margins: The Decolonial Turn in the Brazilian Contemporary Art World'

The purpose of this talk is to show the phenomenon of the “decolonial turn” in the Brazilian art world, based on the exponential growth of practices and knowledge relating to minoritised ethno-racial, gender, class and geopolitical positionalities, and asks how much this "revolution" can drive real change in patterns of legitimacy and representativity in the art world. Brazil is a major player in the Latin-American contemporary art world and its “new decolonial generation” is formed by a highly significant number of artists whose work has been supported by legitimizing institutions seeking to decolonise their remit and given significant recognition in terms of awards and invitations to take on curatorial roles.

About the speaker:
Alessandra Simões Paiva has a Master's in Art History, Theory and Criticism, and a PhD in Latin American Studies, both from the University of São Paulo (USP-Brazil). Currently, she teaches interdisciplinary arts and critical race studies at undergraduate and graduate levels, at the Federal University of Southern Bahia (UFSB), a government institution internationally recognized for its innovative pedagogical-philosophical project, whose territory is marked by the presence of Afro-diasporic, indigenous and agroecological communities. She is a member of the Brazilian Association of Art Critics (ABCA) and the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).  Her research focuses on relations of gender, race, ethnicity, and geopolitics in contemporary Latin American art. She is the author of more than two hundred texts, including academic articles and art reviews in the mainstream and specialized media. She is also a AHGBI Visiting Fellow at the University of Leeds and the University of Essex.

This seminar will be on Zoom. If you'd like to attend, please email spahpg@essex.ac.uk for the link. The talk will also be shown in the Ivor Crewe Seminar Room for those wishing to attend on campus.

Image: Tapuya Abaporu, by indigenous artist Kadu Tapuya, digital collage