Revolution from the Margins: The Decolonial Turn in Latin American Contemporary Art

Join us for this talk with Visiting Researcher Alessandra Simões Paiva (Federal University of Southern Bahia, Brazil).

In Latin America, artists from minority ethnic-racial, gender, class and geopolitical positionalities have contributed to a ‘decolonial turn’ in recent years. In this talk, Alessandra Simões Paiva will ask how much this ‘revolution’ can drive real change in patterns of legitimacy and representation in the art world.

The focus will be on Brazil, a major player in the Latin-American contemporary art world, where 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.

This event is free to attend and no booking is required.

If you can’t make it in person, it will also be possible to attend via Zoom. Please email fincomms@leeds.ac.uk for details.

About the speaker

Alessandra Simões Paiva has a Masters in Art History, Theory and Criticism and a PhD in Latin American Studies 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 a hundred texts, including academic articles and art reviews in the mainstream and specialized media. She is a Visiting Researcher at the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds.

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Photo of Alessandra Simões Paiva. Courtesy of the speaker.