Silvia Forni

Bio

B.A. (Laurea), Philosophy, University of Turin, Italy, 1993
M.A., Cultural Anthropology, Indiana University, IN., 1996
Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology, University of Turin, Italy, 2002

Dr. Silvia Forni is Curator of Anthropology in the ROM’s Department of World Cultures. She is the curator of the African collection, and responsible for the permanent and rotating display of African artworks in the Shreyas and Mina Ajmera Gallery of Africa, the Americas and the Asia Pacific. She is also Assistant Professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto where she teaches Anthropology of Material Culture, Ethnography of Africa and Anthropology of Art.

Since joining the ROM in 2008 she has curated the partial gallery reinstallations Proverbial coffins from Ghana (2011); Community Spectacles: Puppets, Masks, and Musical Instruments from the Amrad Collection of African Art (2011) and For People, Spirits, and Gods: Yoruba Ritual Art from the Jack and Iris Lieber Collection (2011). She has also worked on a number of exhibition projects focusing on African and African Canadian themes including Carnival: From Emancipation to Celebration (2011); El Anatsui. When I last wrote to you about Africa (2010); Position as desired – Exploring African Canadian Identity: Photographs from the Wedge Collection (2010); Stitching communities. African Canadian quilts from Southern Ontario (2009).

Her research focuses on the significance of art objects and material culture as part of a network of exchanges that define regional cultural identities in sub-Saharan Africa as well as the way Africa has been constructed in the Western imagination. Her interests have brought her to the Ndop Plain (North West Province - Cameroon) to explore pottery production and supported her participation in cooperative projects and research in various African countries including Kenya, Zimbabwe, Senegal and Ghana. Currently her main research focus is on the circulation and interpretation – both in scholarship and museum displays - of 20th century African art. In her latest fieldwork in Cameroon, Dr. Forni has been researching the production and marketing of “traditional” African artworks produced since the second half of the 20th century and focusing on the important role of African dealers in the international trade of African art and their contributions to the shaping of collections and knowledge.