Curating is not what I do, it is the essence of who I am.
“As they circulate through our lives, we look through objects (to see what they disclose about history, society, nature or culture – above all, what they disclose about us), but we only catch a glimpse of things.” — Brown, Thing Theory, 2001.
Desiree Dibasen !Nanuses is the Founder and Executive Director for The Curatorial Institute. She served on the Yale University Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage Directors Forum as Fellow and Ms. !Nanuses served as Consultant (Decolonial Specialist ) for Delvendahl Martin Architects on the ReThinking Bismarck Monument, Hamburg Germany, selected as finalists currently exhibited at Museum Hamburgisches Geschichte. Ms. !Nanuses served as Interdisciplinary Chester Dale Fellow with the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she investigated institutional equity, diversity, and inclusion practices and their impact on programming as informed by human resources. Ms. !Nanuses redefines the art canon as based on Western academia and its colonial frame of reference through her action research to advocate for African art, artists, literature, academia, pedagogy, and the acknowledgment of indigenous knowledge systems. She has also represented Namibia in the International Visitor Leader Program with the U.S. Department of State.
Ms. !Nanuses was a Researcher for Digital Heritage Africa's Open Restitution Africa initiative on the return of 23 objects from the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin back to the National Museum of Namibia. Her academic practice included a role as Course Leader at Kingston University, London and as a Ph.D. candidate (2020/23) in Fine Art Curatorial Practice piloted the curriculum in Decolonial Practice that she designed as one of the outcomes from her doctoral degree. Ms. !Nanuses received a distinction for her Master of Arts Degree in Curating Contemporary Design and completed a Study Abroad programme in Museum & Gallery Studies at Kingston University, London.
Ms. !Nanuses Africa-based professional practice commenced with the National Art Gallery of Namibia (NAGN) where she has worked for over a decade as Collections Curator, Exhibitions Curator and Curation Department Coordinator. She was a fellow with the International Committee for Museums of Ethnography (ICME) was subsequently an International Council of Museums Fellow. Upon completion of her Master’s Degree in Curating, Ms. !Nanuses rejoined the NAGN as Acting Chief Curator & Collections Curator while also serving as an Executive Board Member for the Museums Association of Namibia and on the Namibia Heritage Council Committee. Ms. !Nanuses also functioned as Mentor for the African Female Artists Mentoring Program (AFAMP) offered through the Girl Child Art Foundation 2022/23 in response to the need to empower and support African female artists through individual artistic methods and professional ambitions of emerging female artists in Africa. Ms. !Nanuses is trained in telling and preserving heritage stories at the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property.
Ms. !Nanuses’ most recent virtual publication offered through Trend & Trainings on Museum Collections, Storage and Documenting, she presented a paper titled The Politics of Provenance Research & Documenting (March 2024). Prior projects included the Lives of Objects (Nov 2023) virtual gathering hosted by Goethe Institut London in the ReOrienting Restitution dialogues. Lectures included her book titled I had To Get Mad..! (Sept 2023) about the autoethnography in her research as a descendant of the Khoekhoegowab tribe at the University of Tanzania, as well as a workshop lecture (April 2023) at Wits University, South Africa for the Origins Center under the theme Obliterate.
Ms. !Nanuses’ publications on decolonial curatorial practices and navigating museums and galleries during the Covid-19 Global pandemic include, Research Out Loud (Metropolitan Museum of Art, (May 2022). At the International Conference on African Cultures representing Namibia, Ms. Nanuses has presented papers including, Interrogating Curatorship of Human Remains and Religious Objects at the Africa Speaks Conference and The Contemporary Art Of Africa In The Era of The Pandemic at the Museum of African Art in Serbia), on the NAGN’S decolonial project #WhatsYourStory which kept the Namibian art industry thriving during the Covid-19 global pandemic. Ms. !Nanuses has engaged in conversations on Restitution, Repatriation, and the Global Pandemic from an African point of view (Yale Art Gallery) and Cultural Work in Tumultuous Times on the National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s virtual migration situating it within a global discourse.