Sandra Benites

Beinecke Short-Term Fellow

07/10/2023–08/20/2023

Sandra Benites is an anthropologist and Guarani Nhandeva Indigenous curator whose curatorial proposals have emphasized Indigenous cosmovisions and centered Indigenous women as protagonists. Previously she was curator at the Museum of Indigenous Cultures in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and was recently appointed audiovisual director of the National Arts Foundation (Funarte). Benites was the first Indigenous curator at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), where she participated in the exhibition Histórias Brasilerias. Benites has lectured at several American institutions, including the Hammer Museum, MoMA, and Harvard's Peabody Museum. Alongside Brazilian artist, curator, and Clark Fellow for summer 2023 Anita Ekman, she organized the exhibition Ka'a Body: Cosmovision of the Rainforest at Paradise Row in London and Radicantes in Paris. At the Clark, Benites and Ekman intend to jointly produce a publication based on the concepts of body-territory and Indigenous territoriality. This new work will examine how women in contemporary Indigenous and Brazilian art are transforming the global imagination of forests and their human and non-human inhabitants.