Can material culture change people's perception and empower communities? This question, which has been at the center of our reflections over the last few decades, also guides the present text. What follows here is fruit of an intellectual partnership that raises the issue of the importance of collaborative work between universities and communities. The aimperience involving UFPR history students, the Paraná State Museum (Museu Paranaense) and the community, in an attempt to problematize the absence of Afro-Brazilian culture within the museum's walls. Our purpose here is to show how, through collective research in the historical center of the city of Curitiba, where the Parana State Museum is located, and through the use of museum material, the principles of public archeology can guide us in the construction of more pluralist narratives on the city's past, raising issues of memory, exclusion and empowerment. Through these reflections, we seek to contribute to a contemporary debate on the importance of material culture in the construction of spaces for dialogue and human rights guarantees.