TALK WITH IRLANDO FERREIRA
06.06.2026 at 6 pm, 2026
In the talk, I will explore how art and curatorial practice can serve as acts of resistance, rooted in what I define as an “Atlantic perspective.” Within my research and writing, I position Cabo Verde at the “navel” of that Atlantic perspective, a site of connectivity and creative force that serves as a model for transformative new curatorial frameworks. From this perspective, art and curating can mobilize the experiences of island life in the Atlantic to foster community, dialogue, and transformation and open pathways to new forms of cultural and social belonging.
I will reflect on how generations of artists and curators across Cabo Verde have employed collective resistance to define cultural identity, including at the National Centre for Art, Craft and Design, where I served as director and chief curator between 2015 and 2023.
Building from this context, I will introduce a broader framework of “curatorial resistance,” a global methodology that invites curators and cultural practitioners worldwide to rethink their work amid the consolidation of national narratives. This approach foregrounds creativity as a response to constraint, especially in societies marked by historical rupture and contemporary uncertainty. In doing so, it offers a web of care, speculation, and imagination through which we can shape alternative futures.
Irlando Ferreira is a curator and cultural researcher. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Research Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities, Coventry University (UK), funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and co-funded by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG). Hi is also Curator in Residence at Central Saint Martins, London. In 2024, he was a Curatorial Research Fellow at Independent Curators International (ICI), where he is current collaborator.
From 2015 to 2023, he served as Director and Chief Curator of the National Centre for Art, Craft and Design (CNAD) in Cabo Verde, where he led the institution’s curatorial and strategic repositioning and developed an interdisciplinary exhibition and cultural programme. During this period, he curated exhibitions including: Ilha em IV Actos by Luísa Queirós, Arkipélg by Carlos Noronha Feio, and Fios – The Tapestry of Cabo Verde, and co-curated Criação Cabo-verdiana: Percursos with Adélia Borges.
He was honoured as one of the “100 Most Influential Black Personalities in Lusophony by Bantumen Power-List” (2022) and elected as one of Africa’s Most Influential Thinkers Under 40 by the British visual arts magazine, Apollo Magazine (2020).