In this talk presented in partnership with The Africa Center, Cabo Verdean curator and researcher Irlando Ferreira (Curatorial Research Fellow, 2024) explores how art and curatorial practice can serve as acts of resistance, rooted in what he calls an "Atlantic perspective." In his research and writing, Ferreira situates Cabo Verde at the "navel" of that Atlantic perspective, a site of connectivity and creative force that serves as a model for transformative new curatorial frameworks. For Ferreira, art and curating can mobilize the experiences of island life in the Atlantic to foster community, dialogue, and transformation and open pathways to new forms of cultural and social belonging.
Ferreira first reflects on how generations of artists and curators across Cabo Verde have employed collective resistance to define cultural identity—including at the National Centre for Art, Craft and Design, where he served as director and chief curator from 2015 and 2023. He then introduces his broader framework of "curatorial resistance," a global methodology that invites curators and cultural practitioners worldwide to rethink their work amid the consolidation of national narratives. This approach foregrounds creativity as a response to constraint, especially in societies marked by historical rupture and contemporary uncertainty, and offers a web of care, speculation, and imagination through which we can shape alternative futures.
Then, Ferreira is joined by Vanessa Selk, independent curator and founder of the Tout-Monde Art Foundation, for a conversation and moderated Q&A that extends the Atlantic navel perspective across the ocean to the Caribbean and the global diaspora.
