Biography

Joana da Palma Monbaron has an academic background in art history and Russian studies. She has worked as a teacher in high schools and as an educator and organiser in various contemporary art institutions in Russia and Europe. Looking critically at the structures of cultural institutions and the way they shape the production of legitimate knowledge, she has co-organised situated educational projects in (and from) the art world that aimed at reconsidering cultural and political categories. She is currently a PhD candidate of the programme "Human Rights in Contemporary Societies" at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra. Her research focuses on existing efforts to relocate European modern and contemporary art museums within their colonial and anti-communist genealogies, and to reframe their role through the practical consideration of their direct social use.