Research as a Core Museum Practice
RESEARCH AS A CORE MUSEUM PRACTICE: From Grounded Knowledge Production to Exhibition Display
Led by Sabrina Moura, Head of Research, Louvre Abu Dhabi
Wednesday, 13 May
- 9 am Buenos Aires (ART)
- 2 pm Madrid (CET)
- 4 pm Abu Dhabi (GST)
- 5.30 pm Delhi (IST)
- 8 pm Singapore (SGT)
Go to the Members Only Section to Register for this CIMAM Connects Sessions
Abstract:
Museums today increasingly recognize research as a core practice that shapes the building of collections, curatorial strategies, and exhibition-making. Sustained research practices in museums can expand the artistic canon and challenge hierarchical visions of art and knowledge.
This session examines how research-led initiatives in museums—such as collection-based approaches, institutional collaborations, fellowships, and interdisciplinary projects—can inform curatorial perspectives, acquisition policies, and the interpretation and presentation of artworks. It also explores contextual modes of research that emerge within museum settings, including practice-based experimentation and engagement with non-academic formats. These approaches enable museums to generate knowledge grounded in collections and everyday practice while remaining open to multiple methodologies beyond conventional scholarship.
Participants will explore questions such as:
- How can research inform acquisition strategies and deepen understanding of collections?
- What sources and methods support museum-based research, and how can archives and collection documentation expand curatorial interpretation?
- Which research approaches, beyond conventional academic formats, can emerge from museum contexts?
- How can curators work with scholars to translate research findings into meaningful exhibition narratives?
Sabrina Moura shares the following reading recommendations that have inspired her to propose this conversation.
Bjerregaard, Peter, ed. Exhibitions as Research: Experimental Methods in Museums. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 2020. ISBN 9780367784188.
Lehmann, Annette Jael, and Anna-Lena Werner. “Black Mountain and Beyond: Research Practices between Universities and Museums.” Stedelijk Studies Journal 4 (2016). DOI: 10.54533/StedStud.vol004.art13.
Lind, Maria, ed. Performing the Curatorial: Within and Beyond Art. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2012.
O’Neill, Paul, and Mick Wilson, eds. Curating and the Educational Turn. London & Amsterdam: Open Editions/De Appel, 2010.
O’Neill, Paul, and Mick Wilson, eds. Curating Research. London & Amsterdam: Open Editions/De Appel, 2015.
Pringle, Emily. Rethinking Research in the Art Museum. London: Routledge, 2019. ISBN 9781138237872.
Sheikh, Simon. “Curating and Research: An Uneasy Alliance.” In Curatorial Challenges: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Contemporary Curating, edited by Malene Vest Hansen, Anne Folke Henningsen, and Anne Gregersen, London: Routledge, 2019.
Sigfúsdóttir, Ólöf Gerður. “Museum-based Research: A Typological Exploration.” Museum Management and Curatorship 37, no. 5 (2022): 437–448.
Biography
Sabrina Moura (Ph.D., Art History) is a Brazilian writer, researcher, and curator based in the UAE, where she heads the Research initiatives at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. She is also a Visiting Professor of Art History and Museum Studies at the Africa Institute / Global Studies University.
Her research focuses on networks of artistic exchange between Africa, Latin America, and the Arab world, as well as the intersections between historical archives and contemporary artistic practices. Before relocating to Abu Dhabi, she was a fellow at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect, where she developed the exhibition Travelling Back: Reframing a Munich Expedition to Brazil in the 19th Century, presented at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich (2024).
She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Campinas (Brazil) and was a visiting researcher at the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, supported by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories program. In 2022, she conducted research in the collections of the Museu Nacional da República in Brasília, sponsored by UNESCO, which led to the curatorship of the exhibition Aqui Estou (2023).
Moura is the author of Arqueologia da Criação (2022), a study on the work of Brazilian artist Rossini Perez—founder of the first printmaking workshop in Dakar in the 1970s—and the editor of Southern Panoramas: Perspectives for Other Geographies of Thought (2015), a volume examining historical perspectives on artistic exchanges in the Global South. Her writings have appeared in Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, Stedelijk Studies Journal, African Arts, Critical Interventions, and Third Text Africa, among others.
Her research and curatorial projects have been supported by the Getty Foundation, Pro Helvetia, the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Regional Council of Île-de-France, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), among others.