The event will feature a 60–90 minute conversation bringing together Brazilian and European specialists, followed by a moderated audience Q&A.
The session aims to foster dialogue between museum professionals from both regions on decolonisation and repatriation, promote the exchange of practical experiences in documentation, collection research, and exhibition practices, and highlight Indigenous perspectives in the ongoing debates on heritage and memory.
Target Audience: museum professionals and researchers from Brazil, Europe, and Portuguese-speaking African countries, along with Indigenous peoples, community representatives, and members of cultural heritage networks.
Speakers:
- Marilia Xavier Cury – Museologist and museum educator. She has worked at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, University of São Paulo (MAE-USP), since 1992. Since 2010, she has been engaged in collaborative research with Indigenous peoples in the central-west region of São Paulo State (Brazil), especially regarding museums and musealization processes.
- Sandra Benites – With a Master’s degree in Social Anthropology from the National Museum, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), she is a curator, educator, and activist from the Guarani Nhandeva people. She is Director of Visual Arts at Funarte — the Brazilian government’s National Arts Foundation — and was Associate Curator of Brazilian Art at the São Paulo Museum of Art (Masp), Brazil.
- Isabel Beirigo – Research Communication Specialist in the Research and Heritage Department of the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision, and member of ICOM’s Working Group on Decolonisation. In the DE-BIAS project, Isabel contributed to developing methodologies for working with communities and co-creation sessions. The project created an AI-based tool to detect, flag, and historically contextualise problematic language in cultural heritage collection metadata.
- Georgia Manolopoulou – PhD Cand. in Cultural Diplomacy. She works at the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports as a museologist, curator of Educational and Public Programs at the Archaeological Museum of Patras. She is a Fulbright Fellow, a Global Salzburg Fellow -Cultural Innovators Forum, and a Fellow of NEON Curatorial Program. She is an author of published international papers and articles in conferences related to Cultural Management while she has participated as a scientific member in European projects.
