Diego Atehortúa

Diego Atehortúa studies the bridges of Latin American and Caribbean arts with Atlantic Africa from the early modern slave trade to the aftermath of slavery in the long nineteenth century. 

His research interests include the Atlantic and Pacific currents of images, materials, sensory experiences, and religious cultures of the African diaspora; art in the age of revolutions; Afro-Indigenous aesthetic exchanges; and dialogues across the history of art, archaeology, and material anthropology. 

Diego studied Art History at Rutgers University and was a Fulbright teaching fellow at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. As a Beinecke Scholar and Marshall Scholar, he completed a MPhil in Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge and a MSc in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology at the University of Oxford. 

Before Harvard, Diego was an assistant curator at the British Museum, where he researched and promoted Latin American, Caribbean, and West African collections by collaborating with artists, writers, researchers, and community representatives on publications, digital projects, and public programs. He was also managing editor for the Journal of Latin American Studies.