This week, 10 museum professionals from Brazil participating in the Department of State’s Afro-Connections program visited Washington, D.C., to meet with cultural heritage experts, museum curators and U.S. government officials. This week is part of a two-year exchange program focused on strengthening collaboration and mutual understanding between the United States and Brazil and promoting the development of cultural institutions that elevate the voices, history, and culture of communities of African descent.
As part of the program’s activities, participants attended a launch event of the newest exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World, which explores the histories and legacies of slavery, colonialism, and the struggle for freedom on an international scale. The museum, along with the Smithsonian’s Office of Global Affairs, is implementing Afro-Connections in partnership with U.S. Mission Brazil and the Cultural Heritage Center in the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Afro-Connections is an opportunity to celebrate a shared commitment to preserving the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of both countries’ rich multi-ethnic and multi-racial democracies whose ties of friendship are strengthened by shared experiences. The goals of the program are to expand participants’ capacity to establish new institutions and enhance the ability of existing institutions to protect, curate, and exhibit Afro-Brazilian history and culture.
Afro-Connections was announced in May 2024 by Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie G. Bunch III and U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Elizabeth Frawley Bagley at Brazil’s National Archive in Rio de Janeiro. Afro-Connections is one of the Cultural Heritage Center’s new Heritage Exchange Initiatives – a series of projects which use the power of exchange to engage with cultural heritage professionals and community stewards around the world on priority issues affecting heritage.