Rogerio Victor Satil Neves

In 2021, 50 contemporary art curators, researchers, and museum professionals from 32 different countries were awarded support to attend the CIMAM 2021 Annual Conference, in-person and online.

For the first time, and thanks to the generous support of The Getty Foundation who sponsored the virtual platform, 27 grantees attended the conference online, while 23 attended onsite.

Launched in 2005, CIMAM’s Travel Grant Program is designed to foster cooperation and cultural exchange between contemporary art curators and museum directors in emerging and developing economies and their counterparts in other regions of the world.

Rogerio Victor Satil Neves' Conference Report

First, I would like to express my gratitude for being a beneficiary of the CIMAM 2021 travel Grant Program as well as thanking the Getty Foundation for the grant that made possible this magnificent experience.

My participation at CIMAM 2021 Annual Conference Under Pressure: Museums in Times of Xenophobia was online. This experience made me re-think the role of the modern art museum in the contemporary world. As a museologist and researcher, I believe that museums are democratic spaces that are constantly changing and, therefore, these museum spaces should open their doors for debate and new forms of representation. Hence, this type of conference plays a fundamental role in the deconstruction of the idea of a museum as a neutral space, concerning just the preservation and the materiality of the object. In order words, museums nowadays should attempt to go beyond their wall and use their collection as a medium of social change.

The conference’s three-day program included inspiring presentations. It illustrates the concern with social and climate change that the museum should embrace. Among all the speeches I was fascinated by Joanna Sokolowska’s presentation. She exposed two cases about curating practices that I believe are determining to amplify certain voices as well as to re-think the curatorship process of a museum. She demonstrates how we can use artworks to convey different narratives about the world and create a discourse that is not structured into a patriarchal point of view.

As an online participate, I found the networking session a great tool to be involved in the conference and to know the participant’s background. It was the first time that I have participated in the CIMAM conference and I am delighted by this opportunity which I could learn about diverse perspectives.