Laura Burocco

Laura Burocco

Fellow: Postdoctoral

Laura Burocco teaches, researches, and occasionally works as a curator. Her research interests are on cultural industry and the transformation of work in post-industrial and post-colonial societies, cultural diplomacy and soft power, knowledge production, cognitive capitalism, and southern epistemology into the theoretical framework of decolonial and urban studies. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Visual History and Theory at the Centre for Humanities Research of the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town. She holds a Post-Doctorate in Visual Languages (EBA/UFRJ) – Expose/Exploit Black Art- and a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture (ECO/UFRJ) – Creative Hubs of Coloniality where she developed the concept of ‘creative control’- from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, a Masters in Built Environment, MBE-Housing – People’s Place in The World Class City – from Wits University in Johannesburg. From 2012 to 2018 she conducted the research and artistic project Gentrilogy between Milano, Rio de Janeiro, and Johannesburg, which resulted in two exhibitions, Braamopoly (Johannesburg 2013) and Gentrilogy (Rio de Janeiro, 2019), and several presentations and publications. In 2019 was part of the Intensive Curatorial Program of the 2nd Lagos Biennial.

Her research project at CHR aims at rethinking knowledge regimes and the nature of the academia and cultural industry, in relation to the hegemonic understanding of knowledge and art market hierarchies, and their particular location in the power structures. It does so by establishing a dialogue between art and cultural productions that originate from southern artists and scholars in the South. With regards to global debates on restitution and decolonization of museums, the study focuses on the analyses of the situated African and Brazilian debate and the resignification of museums and curatorial experience.  Being a bilingual project (English and Portuguese) the research also addresses the issues of translation, circulation, and publishing policies.

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