While Black women take the helm of leadership on museum boards in the United States, in Barcelona last month, Elvira Dyangani Ose began her new role as Director of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). Ose comes with a long list of accomplishments and experiences gained in Europe, Africa, and the US. Elvira served as Director and Chief Curator of The Showroom in London, as well as Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a member of the Thought Council, Fondazione Prada before heading to MACBA. Born in Cordova, Spain, Ose is the first woman and the first Black person to lead the organization, which was founded in 1987.
Elvira Dyangani Ose has stated that, for her, being appointed Director of MACBA means "that institutions such as museums – and, in this case, MACBA – are or should be permeable to the world around them. That they recognize hyperlocality, in this case, the Raval and its communities, as a starting point. That they span a more local scale to a transnational one, in a journey that emphasizes the de-hierarchization of history, in favor of the plurality of stories, narrators and protagonists."
It’s clear that museums and cultural institutions around the world are beginning to embrace a new way of doing business with communities, particularly those communities whose contributions to international thought and culture have been previously diminished. And we are here for all of it!