The three-year project CDCD – Contested Desires: Constructive Dialogues co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe program and coordinated by ECCOM, which involved 16 cultural institutions, 22 contemporary artists, and communities from 11 European and non-European countries to promote intercultural dialogue and a critical reinterpretation of cultural heritage through artistic and participatory practices, is coming to an end.
On November 12, 2026, at the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin, the closing conference “Decolonizing Heritage: Artistic Practices, Conflicts, and Transformations” will take place—a day of discussion on decolonial perspectives and cultural participation, featuring artists, project partners, researchers, and representatives of cultural institutions.
The final conference serves as an opportunity to reflect on and discuss the project’s legacy and the future prospects of cultural work capable of recognizing the plurality of histories, challenging established narratives, and combating discrimination and exclusion through dialogue.
The morning will begin with a presentation of the project and a talk by Alessandra Gariboldi, president of Culture Action Europe, focusing on the relationship between CDCD and the European Union’s cultural policies. This will be followed by a session on the role of artists in decolonial processes, featuring Clymene Christoforou, founder and board member of D6, and the project’s artists Claudio Beorchia and Maria Luigia Gioffré, along with researcher Gioia Toscani De Col from the Museum of Civilizations in Rome.
The perspective of cultural institutions will be the focus of a subsequent discussion with Marta C. Lourenço, director of the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência in Lisbon; Johannes Auenmüller, curator of the Egyptian Museum in Turin; and Rossana Di Lella, curator of the Museum of Civilizations in Rome.
In the afternoon, a session dedicated to cultural participation from a decolonial perspective, titled “Who Is Missing from the Room?”, will explore issues of access and representation. This will be followed by the presentation of the project’s publication, edited by Divina Centore, curator of the Egyptian Museum of Turin.
The day will conclude with “CDCD: Legacies and Future Perspectives,” a conversation with Jerneja Rebernak, head of projects and partnerships at the Decolonizing Arts Institute at the University of the Arts London and a member of the CDCD Ethics Committee, and Leona Vaughn, a researcher at the University of Liverpool specializing in anti-colonial approaches to the study of slavery and forced labor, and an external evaluator for the project.
The full program is available at this link
- November 12, 2026, 9:30 a.m.– 4:00 p.m.
- Gallerie d’Italia, Piazza San Carlo 156, Turin
- Register here to attend in person or online
Contested Desires: Constructive Dialogues (CDCD) is co-funded by the European Union under the Creative Europe program.
The final conference of the CDCD – Contested Desires: Constructive Dialogues project is also organized with the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and the contribution of the Ministero della Cultura – Dipartimento per le attività culturali – Direzione generale Biblioteche e Istituti Culturali.
