The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, is pleased to host the third lecture in the Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition Fellowship series, supported by Open Society Foundations.
Professor Sabrina Moura—Curator and Writer; Research and Development Manager at Louvre Abu Dhabi (UAE); and Affiliated Professor, Arts Department, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, UFRN (Brazil)—will present “Images of the Past, Questions of the Present” on Monday, May 12, 2025 (3:30 PM to 5:30 PM) at The Africa Institute Auditorium (location map).
The session is free and open to the public. Register to attend.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientific expeditions were part of a global natural-history project guided by an epistemic mission that was seemingly nobler than that of colonial conquest. In pursuit of science and universal knowledge, the exploration of new territories, the naming of species, and the act of collecting became central to a classificatory rationale rooted in Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae (1735). This lecture begins with that context to interrogate the contemporary echoes of a 19th-century expedition by German naturalists Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich von Martius to Brazil. Drawing on Saidiya Hartman’s notion of critical fabulation and Benedetto Croce’s assertion that “all history is contemporary history,” it examines the role of fiction in opening new perspectives on ethnographic collections and archives. Furthermore, it also explores how contemporary artists and scholars challenge historical narratives and reimagine these collections, unpacking and recontextualizing our understanding of colonial practices of knowledge-making.
Sabrina Moura
Sabrina Moura is a is a Brazilian writer, researcher, and curator currently based in the UAE, where she heads the Research program at Louvre Abu Dhabi. Her research focuses on the networks of artistic exchange between Africa and Latin America, and the intersections between historical archives and contemporary artistic practices. Before relocating to Abu Dhabi, she was a fellow at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis: connect, where she developed the exhibition Travelling Back: Reframing a Munich Expedition to Brazil in the 19th Century, presented at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich (2024).
Moura holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Campinas, Brazil, and was a visiting researcher at the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, supported by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories program. In 2022, she was sponsored by UNESCO to conduct research in the collections of the Museu Nacional da República in Brasília, which led to the curatorship of the exhibition Aqui Estou (2023). She is the author of Arqueologia da Criação (2022), a study on the work of Brazilian artist Rossini Perez—founder of the first printmaking workshop in Dakar in the 1970s—and the editor of Southern Panoramas: Perspectives for Other Geographies of Thought (2015), a volume that examines historical perspectives on artistic exchanges in the Global South. Her writings have appeared in Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, Stedelijk Studies Journal, African Arts, Critical Interventions, Third Text Africa, among others.
Salah M. Hassan is the Chancellor of Global Studies University (GSU) and Dean of The Africa Institute, Sharjah. In addition to his roles in Sharjah, Hassan is a Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Africana Studies at Cornell University, where he also serves as the Director of the Institute for Comparative Modernities (ICM) and a Professor of Art History and Visual Culture. His academic and curatorial expertise spans several decades, contributing significantly to the fields of Africana studies and contemporary African art. Read more.
This lecture is part of the Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition Fellowship, an annual program that brings together scholars and practitioners to engage with restitution and repatriation issues related to African art and artifacts. The fellowship supports research and dialogue on cultural heritage, historical accountability, and the return of looted artifacts to their rightful homes in Africa. Applications for the fellowship are currently open. Visit our fellowships program to learn more.
The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, is pleased to host the third lecture in the Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition Fellowship series, supported by Open Society Foundations.
The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, is pleased to host the third lecture in the Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition Fellowship series, supported by Open Society Foundations.
Professor Sabrina Moura—Curator and Writer; Research and Development Manager at Louvre Abu Dhabi (UAE); and Affiliated Professor, Arts Department, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, UFRN (Brazil)—will present “Images of the Past, Questions of the Present” on Monday, May 12, 2025 (3:30 PM to 5:30 PM) at The Africa Institute Auditorium (location map).
The session is free and open to the public. Register to attend.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientific expeditions were part of a global natural-history project guided by an epistemic mission that was seemingly nobler than that of colonial conquest. In pursuit of science and universal knowledge, the exploration of new territories, the naming of species, and the act of collecting became central to a classificatory rationale rooted in Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae (1735). This lecture begins with that context to interrogate the contemporary echoes of a 19th-century expedition by German naturalists Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich von Martius to Brazil. Drawing on Saidiya Hartman’s notion of critical fabulation and Benedetto Croce’s assertion that “all history is contemporary history,” it examines the role of fiction in opening new perspectives on ethnographic collections and archives. Furthermore, it also explores how contemporary artists and scholars challenge historical narratives and reimagine these collections, unpacking and recontextualizing our understanding of colonial practices of knowledge-making.
Sabrina Moura
Sabrina Moura is a is a Brazilian writer, researcher, and curator currently based in the UAE, where she heads the Research program at Louvre Abu Dhabi. Her research focuses on the networks of artistic exchange between Africa and Latin America, and the intersections between historical archives and contemporary artistic practices. Before relocating to Abu Dhabi, she was a fellow at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis: connect, where she developed the exhibition Travelling Back: Reframing a Munich Expedition to Brazil in the 19th Century, presented at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich (2024).
Moura holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Campinas, Brazil, and was a visiting researcher at the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, supported by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories program. In 2022, she was sponsored by UNESCO to conduct research in the collections of the Museu Nacional da República in Brasília, which led to the curatorship of the exhibition Aqui Estou (2023). She is the author of Arqueologia da Criação (2022), a study on the work of Brazilian artist Rossini Perez—founder of the first printmaking workshop in Dakar in the 1970s—and the editor of Southern Panoramas: Perspectives for Other Geographies of Thought (2015), a volume that examines historical perspectives on artistic exchanges in the Global South. Her writings have appeared in Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, Stedelijk Studies Journal, African Arts, Critical Interventions, Third Text Africa, among others.
Salah M. Hassan is the Chancellor of Global Studies University (GSU) and Dean of The Africa Institute, Sharjah. In addition to his roles in Sharjah, Hassan is a Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Africana Studies at Cornell University, where he also serves as the Director of the Institute for Comparative Modernities (ICM) and a Professor of Art History and Visual Culture. His academic and curatorial expertise spans several decades, contributing significantly to the fields of Africana studies and contemporary African art. Read more.
This lecture is part of the Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition Fellowship, an annual program that brings together scholars and practitioners to engage with restitution and repatriation issues related to African art and artifacts. The fellowship supports research and dialogue on cultural heritage, historical accountability, and the return of looted artifacts to their rightful homes in Africa. Applications for the fellowship are currently open. Visit our fellowships program to learn more.
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