Media Culture and Heritage: Curating Outsidership

Simone Osthoff / USA

Pennsylvania State University

Paper

This article looks at current and future issues in the field of art, science, and technology—from the challenges of its own historicizing process to the curatorial exclusion of cultural heritages usually located at the margins of mainstream research. It argues the need for “other” histories and knowledge inclusion from overlooked sources such as oral cultures. With a few curatorial examples coming from Brazil, the paper emphasizes the social inequities in that country, as well as a deep-rooted colonial mindset, unfortunately still dominant in many circles. By emphasizing critical and original examples of artists, critics, and curators who uphold contemporary art alongside heritages from black, indigenous, folk and outsider groups, the paper examines strategic uses of technology, for instance, in the phenomena of the rolezinhos, and that of a nomad museum.