Luana Lorena is a researcher and collections manager. She holds a degree in Visual Arts from the University of São Paulo — ECA-USP — and is currently pursuing a graduate specialization in Museology, Culture, and Education at PUC-SP. Her current research focuses on policies of restitution, return, and repatriation of Brazilian cultural heritage, connecting these debates to the field of the right to memory.

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Her work is centered on the management, organization, conservation, research, and dissemination of cultural, historical, and artistic collections, especially in the field of photography. She develops working methodologies aimed at the preservation of physical and digital archives, with particular attention to cataloging, the development of controlled vocabularies, preventive conservation, digitization, and the design of public access strategies.

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She currently works in the management of artistic, photographic, and documentary collections, developing projects focused on the organization, preservation, cataloging, dissemination, and institutional structuring of archives. She manages the archive of artist Eustáquio Neves, leading processes of organization, preventive conservation, cataloging, and project development related to the safeguarding and circulation of his work. She also works with the archive of photojournalist Victor Moriyama, focusing on digital preservation, records management, workflow organization, and strategic consulting for the use, circulation, and licensing of images. In parallel, she provides consulting services for the photographic, documentary, and historical archive of Lenise Pinheiro, a central figure in Brazilian stage photography, working on institutional dialogue, partnership development, and the strengthening of preservation and dissemination strategies. Among her recent projects is her participation in the research, organization, cataloging, and public access development of the Black Labor Memory Collection, a project developed by artist Guilherme Bretas.

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Her academic trajectory is shaped by an interest in the relationships between memory, visual culture, and heritage. During her undergraduate studies in Visual Arts at ECA-USP, she focused on the study of historical photographic processes and on the investigation of photography as a material object. In 2019, she developed the undergraduate research project A fotografia como objeto (Photography as Object), advised by Prof. Dr. João Luís Musa and nominated for the 29th International Symposium of Undergraduate Research and Technological Innovation at USP. This research continued in her undergraduate thesis, which focused on the digitization, conservation, and critical reflection on analog and vernacular photographic materials.

 

As an extension of her artistic and documentary research, she published the photobook Canção à poeira (Song to the dust), which was selected for several festivals and became the subject of a critical essay published in Revista ZUM. She has also taken part in initiatives dedicated to the appreciation of oral history, such as the publication Acervo de múltiplas vozes: narrativas de experiências com Arte e Educação (Archive of Multiple Voices: Narratives of Experiences with Art and Education).

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Her training is complemented by courses in image studies, archival studies, heritage education, conservation, and museum processes, undertaken at institutions such as Instituto Moreira Salles, the National Archives of Brazil, IBRAM, IPHAN, and FIOCRUZ.

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Her work understands memory as a field of dispute, care, and critical elaboration, seeking to build bridges between narratives of the past and perspectives for the future.