Say hello to our RMB Latitudes CuratorLab Mentors & Guest Speakers

Inspiring the next wave of curators from Africa

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 RMB, Latitudes and Art School Africa invest in the future of curatorial excellence

Our CuratorLab participants are diving deep into inspiring sessions with leading arts professionals. From Art History and the Evolution of Curation in Africa to Collaboration in Curatorial Practice, Personal Branding and Marketing for Curators, Ethical Art Marketing and Selling of African Art, Budgeting and Negotiations in Art Curation, and Leveraging Digital Tools in Contemporary Art Curation - our mentors are sharing knowledge, and our curators are growing.

Together, RMB, Latitudes and our new partnership with Art School Africa aim to foster a new model for curatorial mentorship – one that bridges theory and practice, and prioritises long-term, sustainable growth within the African arts ecosystem.

Alexandra Martinez, Aindrea Emelife, Exhibition Match (Alexander Richards and Phokeng Setai), Pumla Maswanganyi, Chidi Nwaubani, Dr Thabang Monoa

Aindrea Emelife

Aindrea Emelife (b. 1994) is a Nigerian-British curator and art historian specialising in modern and contemporary art, with a focus on questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation. She currently serves as the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at MOWAA (Museum of West African Art) in Benin City, Nigeria - a new museum opening in stages from 2024 onwards.

Alexandra Martinez

Alexandra Martinez is a curator and cultural producer working at the intersection of contemporary art and interdisciplinary collaboration. Her practice spans institutions and independent platforms, with a focus on creating the conditions for ambitious, culturally resonant work to emerge. With a particular interest in conservation, archaeology, and cultural memory as expressed through public space, she is drawn to projects that cultivate critical dialogue and support artists and thinkers in meaningful ways.

Chidi Nwaubani - Guest Speaker

Chidi Nwaubani is a Nigerian-British artist and the founder of LOOTY, a collective focused on the digital repatriation of stolen cultural artefacts. Through what he terms "digital heists," he uses AR and 3D scanning to challenge colonial narratives and democratize access to heritage. His work explores the power of technology to resurrect histories and foster new models of community-based creation.

Through LOOTY, he orchestrated what he playfully terms "digital heists," infiltrating the Western museums armed with LiDAR scanners and a fervent belief in the power of technology to right historical wrongs. These scans birth detailed 3D models of artefacts – the Benin Bronzes, the Rosetta Stone – which then become the DNA for NFTs and AR/ VR experiences that defy the very notion of ownership and repatriation. 

Nwaubani's practice is intrinsically linked to the decoloniality movement, critiquing the Eurocentric focus on aesthetic beauty and historical injustices. Nwaubani's visionary contributions have garnered international recognition, been featured at the 2023 Venice Biennale, and featured in prominent publications such as the BBC, Reuters, and Frieze. As a member of Snapchat's Lens Creator Network, he experiments with XR/AR to redefine art and create captivating experiences.

Exhibition Match

Alexander Richards:

Alexander Richards completed his Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand and later completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) at the University of Cape Town. In the same year he joined Strauss and Co, South Africa’s leading art auction house where he took on the role of Art Specialist. In 2017 he joined Stevenson as an associate and is now one of 11 Directors at the gallery. At Stevenson he has curated numerous shows including; ‘Both, and’ (2018), Where do I begin (2022) and Juxtapositions: Unathi Mkonto and David Goldblatt (2023). In 2022 he founded Exhibition Match with Phokeng Setai – an art-world football match and accompanying exhibition.

Dr Phokeng Setai

Phokeng Setai's curatorial practice involves experimenting with different models to investigate various artistic and research-based inquiries. Following the completion of his doctoral dissertation in January 2024, which examined contemporary African strategies of curatorial practice and pedagogy, Setai shifted his focus to the crossover of contemporary art practices into urban studies, architectural practice, and football scholarship. Setai is an alumnus of Raw Material Company, Independent Curators International, and the Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Madrid, Spain. He co-founded Exhibition Match, an artistic project and social intervention that aims to make art accessible through football. Setai is an Assistant Curator at Zeitz MoCAA. 

Pumla Maswanganyi

Pumla Maswanganyi is a speculative designer, cultural curator, and speaker; with an academic background in Studio Art, African Identities, and Globalisation + Development. She is the founding director of with another; a creative studio and consultancy led by researchers, artists, and designers; developing strategies, products, and experiences shaping futures through culturally rooted design. She is also the primary author of African Life-Centric Design (ALCD), through which she articulates creation principles rooted in the varied lived experiences and aspirations on the continent. Recognised for engaging with aesthetic languages to envision African and Global Majority futures, Pumla serves as a prominent thinking partner to a range of global institutions from Fortune 500s to universities to grassroots frameworks. Her TL;DR is letting the question ‘what kind of ancestor do you want to be?’ guide her evolving intellectual and implementation practice.

Dr Thabang Monoa

Thabang Monoa’s research interests are embedded in art history, aesthetic theory, art criticism, visual culture, curatorial practice and cultural studies. His doctoral study, which he is developing into a monograph, focused on the notion of Blackness in Afrofuturist aesthetics. Monoa is a former council member of South African Visual Art Historians (SAVAH); he formed part of a cohort of eminent scholars in art history who participated in the CAA-Getty programme in 2023; he has recently joined the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA) interim editorial board and is a co-convenor of the Gerard Sekoto Winter/Summer School, which is administered through the Johannesburg Art Gallery. In his current capacity as a lecturer in art history at the University of Cape Town’s Michealis School of Fine Art, Monoa investigates in his teaching themes that are related to aspects of Black Radical Thought, Black modernism and futurities as they unfold in the artworks of Black South African and Afro-Diasporic artists.