On 19 May, David Scott will give a lecture on “Restoring the Future” at Culturgest‘s Small Auditorium, from 19h to 21h. The session will be moderated by Liliana Coutinho and Inês Beleza Barreiros. Free admission*.

How can practices of restitution of objects, memories, and stories become gestures of reconfiguring futures? Scott proposes a postcolonial critique that goes beyond reparation. By articulating ethics, critique, and imagination, Scott invites us to think of restitution not as a mere return, but as a creative movement, a foundation for plural futures, that is, not as the restoration of a lost past, but as new forms of coexistence and shared responsibility.

David Scott teaches in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. He is the author of several books, including Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality (1999), Stuart Hall’s Voice: Intimations of an Ethics of Receptive Generosity (2017) and The Paradox of Freedom: A Biographical Dialogue (2023). He was also the curator at the Kingston Bienal, with the theme of ‘Pressure’, as well as the exhibitions Caribbean Queer Visualities (Belfast 2016, Glasgow 2017) and The Visual Life of Social Affliction (Nassau and Miami, 2019 and Roterdão, 2020).

*By pre-booking or collecting your ticket 15 minutes before the event (limited to the venue’s to capacity). Book your seat here. The lecture will be in English without simultaneous translation.

This event is supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e para a Tecnologia) of the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science under the projects UID/00417/2025 https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/00417/2025, UID/00183/2025 https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/00183/2025 and UID/5021/2025 https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/PRR/05021/2025.