Contemporary Art - A path towards an inclusive museology

Based on the pilot project Seed Ilind, this FCT project intends to amplify the questions it launched and introduce an applied component. In the context of the progressive introduction of contemporary art into the field of museology as a means to reconsider (im)material culture heritage, it is surprising how little analysis has been devoted to the theoretical contribution that from all contemporary art forms, especially conceptual art has made to the discipline.

This research project does not aim to fill this gap by drawing a history of cases in which contemporary art and anthropology have met inside the museum since the beginning of the twentieth century and the repercussions of these encounters, which involve complex delimitations and contaminations. Relating theory from distinct scientific domains, CARIM intends to demonstrate that specifically conceptual art (from all other contemporary art forms) had a revolutionary role to play in the recent understanding of heritage, with the objective of drawing solutions and methods with immediate applicability for heritage institutions in the Portuguese context today. Blending theory from heritage studies, anthropology, conceptual and visual arts, decolonial studies with analysis of specific artworks from different decades, CARIM aims to follow how conceptual, performative, multi-disciplinary artistic practices and display strategies radically contribute to the elaboration of critical, processual, performative and inclusive forms of heritage transmission, which contribute to de-colonial museologic critique.