Objects and Their Journeys: In Pursuit of the Provenance of Things

(POST) COLONIALISM and CULTURAL HERITAGE INTERNATIONAL DEBATES AT THE HUMBOLDT FORUM HANSER (POST)COLONIALISM and CULTURAL HERITAGE (POST) COLONIALISM and CULTURAL HERITAGE INTERNATIONAL DEBATES AT THE HUMBOLDT FORUM HANSER CONTENTS PAGE 10 Foreword PAGE 1 2 Natalia Majluf. Starting from Place: Claims to the Nation and the World PAGE 24 Nazan Ölçer. Heritage: Restitution and Complementary Paths PAGE 40 Abdoulaye Touré. Reflections on the Future of Postcolonial Collections: To Whom Does Culture Belong? PAGE 54 Thomas Thiemeyer in conversation with Kwame Anthony Appiah. Cosmopolitanism and Cultural Heritage PAGE 76 PAGE 196 Lee Chor Lin. Colonising the Coconut Groves: Philipp Blom in conversation with Neil MacGregor. Artistic Legacies of British Colonial Malaya A House of Many Stories: But Who is to Tell Them? PAGE 98 PAGE 218 George Okello Abungu. The Question of Restitution and Return: Hartmut Dorgerloh. On the Way to the Humboldt Forum: A Dialogue of Interests The Role of the International Team of Experts PAGE 1 20 PAGE 238 Jyotindra Jain. Objects and Their Journeys: ICOM Museum Definition In Pursuit of the Provenance of Things PAGE 240 PAGE 136 Contributors Hu Wei. The Age of Cooperation and Information Sharing: On the Chinese Cultural Legacy at the Humboldt Forum PAGE 24 8 Image credits PAGE 154 Round table discussion with Lars-Christian Koch, Wayne Modest and Barbara Plankensteiner. Thinking and Acting Differently: Transformation Processes in Ethnographic Museums in Central Europe PAGE 180 Rita Eder. Dilemmas Facing the Humboldt Forum: Objects and the Embodiment of a Political Project FOREWORD Colonialism, coloniality, postcolonialism, decolonization: These This volume features contributions from renowned international terms comprise touchstones within a cluster of topics that is as- museum experts who have supported and advised the Humboldt suming increasingly greater prominence in politics and society, is Forum in its development and who, with their outside perspectives, reaching ever more people in their everyday lives and is being dis- have also sometimes criticised it. Their essays and conversations cussed worldwide. Museums, along with cultural and scientific in- draw from an individual wealth of experience that also shapes their stitutions, are also more closely examining the issues involved: assessment of the intense debate about provenance and restitution How are those currently in possession of collections stemming of ethnographic collections, especially in Europe. In the first part of from colonial contexts dealing with them? How can Western per- the book, the experts address the role of museums and collections spectives be diversified? In what ways do descendant or source in defining the identity of communities; the second part of the communities view their tangible and intangible cultural heritage book focuses on the relationship between research and exhibitions. in European collections? Which aesthetic, religious and ritual as- The texts repeatedly approach the Humboldt Forum in different pects come into play? How can researchers gain free access to ar- ways and encourage readers to question their own views. chives, inventories and exhibits in museums worldwide? Address- This book enables the Humboldt Forum to provide insight into ing colonial history and (post)colonial continuities will be one of its substantive work and present itself as a forum in the literal the central topics for the Humboldt Forum and will decisively sense: a space for diversity of opinion and international debate. shape the programme and profile of this new type of cultural institution. 10 – FOREWORD 11 – FOREWORD »I think that the desire to see the art of other cultures aesthetically tells us more about our own ideology and its quasi-religious veneration of art objects as aesthetic talismans, than it does about these other cultures.« Alfred Gell1 The postcolonial discourse on museum and culture collecting practices has instilled more leverage into the conventional template of “provenance”, which initially merely determined the place of origin of an object sans the account of its meandering, often clandestine, journeys ending in the custody of a museum. The contested issue of the restitution of cultural objects in the possession of Western museums colonially acquired from non-Western societies, which 121 – JYOTINDRA JAIN originally produced and owned them, is not new. Awareness of the African cultural objects to the societies of their origin and provides need to work out ethical guidelines for museum collecting goes back directions for the requisite provenance research as well as for moral to the early 20th century when the American Association of Muse- considerations for restitution. To that extent, it has the potential to ums published its Code of Ethics for Museums, which underwent sev- serve as a template for evolving models for other societies or na- eral revisions over the next decades. The Museum Association of the tions with requisite adjustments. The report has predictably startled UK published its Code of Ethics in 1995 and its revised Code of Ethics for the museum world and generated a persuasive debate, not only Museums in 2002, and subsequently issued a “Declaration on the Im- among Western museums but also among cultural functionaries of portance and Value of Universal Museums” in 2003, endorsed by other societies and countries to register a demand for restitution of more than 20 Western museums. Similar other charters have been their heritage in foreign museums. 2 regularly put forward by museums in Canada, Australia and elsewhere. One striking feature of these charters and declarations is that PROVENANCE RESEARCH AND RESTITUTION: they primarily address ethical practices pertaining to the routine THEIR ACADEMIC, POLITICAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS work of museum professionals, their research, the displays, outreach Until recently, provenance remained conventionalised as a facile programs and pedagogical activities, and most importantly social museological term, to fulfil the epistemic and pedagogical obliga- purposes. Hardly any of these documents make any significant refer- tions of the museum. The notion of provenance research is integral ence to the ethics of museum collecting practices in the former col- to the very formation of the idea of the museum as a repository of onies, not to mention the restitution of unethically collected objects cultural objects, which were quite often haphazardly and indis- and the related provenance research. The first ever attempt of some criminately gathered by means of colonial supremacy, war booty, consequence in this regard was The ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums in plunder or exploitation, serving the ideals of universal knowledge 2018, wherein “Provenance and Due Diligence” were recommended beginning with the era of Enlightenment. However, as pointed out to be observed before the acquisition of any object by a museum. by Neil G. W. Curtis, one may not lose sight of the fact that “the 3 An earlier, albeit lesser known yet deeply humane, appeal in the Enlightenment origins of museums took place at a time when form of a “Plea for the Return of an Irreplaceable Cultural Heritage owning slaves could be as acceptable as owning collections of to those who Created it” was made by Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow antiquities”, and “museums need to deal with contemporary cultural in 1978, the then-director of UNESCO. However, the most influen- concerns and ethics, not those of the Enlightenment shorn of its tial document on the subject is the report by Felwine Sarr and darker side.”6 The de-contextualized fragments of culture needed Bénédicte Savoy, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron, the presi- to be legitimised and revalidated within the framework of the dent of the Republic of France. The uncompromising report makes museum, which is where the primary notion of provenance research a meticulous argument for the restitution of colonially acquired originated. 4 5 122 – JYOTINDRA JAIN 123 – JYOTINDRA JAIN The rise of the current debate on the restitution of cultural heritage in close partnership with the post-colonial societies whose objects removed from the former colonies is an outcome of the post- the museums are aspiring to conduct the said research on. The ob- colonial emergence of a discursive space within both the previous- ject’s entire cultural and historical context lies in the country of its ly colonised societies as well as those of the colonisers with regard origin. In fact, it would be highly appropriate for the provenance re- to the range of injustices caused to the former on account of colo- search centres situated at Western museums to encourage former col- nial power relations. Considering the sudden shift in provenance onies to set up partner centres, which would put together exhaustive research from mere identification of an object’s place of origin to inventories of their cultural objects lying in museums abroad to serve the documentation of its often tedious and unethical journey end- the dual goal of academic and provenance research. This would be a ing in a museum via certain rites of passage including colonial pil- major step in the direction of sincere decolonisation of collections. lage and loot, unauthorized removal and smuggling, the subject is The training for provenance researchers should include basic ed- increasingly being recognized as an independent academic disci- ucation in postcolonialism, orientalism and cultural studies, be- pline. On par with art history, cultural studies or new museology, it cause provenance research and the issues of restitution are not is not consequentially linked to the issue of restitution of museum merely linked to the physical mobility of objects and their material objects, while not necessarily disengaging from it either. transactions, but pivots on an understanding of the process of colo- Provenance research on non-Western cultural objects and antiq- nisation, for example, in terms of the colonial secularisation of reli- uities housed in the Western museums could be approached from gious places (“disinterred, unjungled, measured, photographed, re- several angles, but for the formalisation of a research program, at constructed, fenced up, analysed and displayed”7) and the subsequent least, the following two interconnected facets need to be taken relocation of their fragments to museums within the colony and into account: (1) provenance research to attain an academic objec- the colonist state. These perspectives will shift the emphasis in tive and (2) the restitutive objective. The focus of the first lies on its provenance studies from merely material and legal to ethical and epistemic value, essentially addressing the general cultural and so- discursive dimensions and also enlighten the curatorial practices. cial background of the object; its manufacture, use and history of its Laws restricting the export of antiquities from the former colo- tradition; and its comparative art-historical disposition. Yet it would nies came into being only recently, after the emergence of the post- also feed into the research on the specific restitutive intent – the colonial, independent nation-states and with the evolution of their object’s journey from its place of origin to its arrival in a museum, independent nation-building exercises comprising their own con- which calls for labyrinthine and lateral explorations and analyses of stitutions and the surge in their nationalist consciousnesses. One of archival material. the main constituents of this new consciousness has been the reviv- In order to achieve these objectives in an honest and meaningful al of past traditions, which are seen as having been decimated by way, centres for provenance research need to be established that work colonial rule – to the extent that sometimes traditions were invented 124 – JYOTINDRA JAIN 125 – JYOTINDRA JAIN where they did not exist. While the demand for the restitution of colonially acquired objects needs to evolve other criteria and method- art and cultural objects by the previously colonized societies is most ologies which are less legalistic and more culturally contextualised. often ingrained in this process, one needs to observe caution that the politically driven and majoritarian groups do not hijack the pro- THE ART-HISTORICAL APPROACH AND PROVENANCE RESEARCH ject from multi-cultural and multi-communal nations, where often Let me further reflect on the idea of alternate approaches to prove- the minorities, too, are relatively large and have made historically nance research on colonial acquisitions, both in terms of its aca- immense contributions to the formation of the composite cultural demic and restitutive objectives. Because the entire legitimacy of the tradition. Conscious of the fact that routing the repatriated objects modern discipline of art-history rests on stylistic deliberations read through the “nation” could invite the risk of ideological appropria- in conjunction with discursive, literary, ethnological and archaeolog- tion, I have replaced the term ‘nation’ with ‘society’ or ‘community’ ical corroborations, the art-historical approach would certainly be in this essay, though officially the nation will act as the instrument efficacious in establishing with fair certainty the prefatory prove- for claiming and receiving such restitution. However, this issue nance of an isolated museum object, particularly those removed should not be used as an excuse against restitution per se. This factor from public places of worship such as temples or stupas, in the case would need to be curatorially addressed, but need not act as a deter- of Asia. Once the broad provenance of such colonially acquired mu- rent in the process of restitution. seum objects from public places is established through the art-his- It would be an unfair and futile exercise to subject the previous- torical approach, even if a museum which owns it is able to produce ly colonized societies to a Kafkaesque charade of producing legal any “valid” documents for its transfer and acquisition, there is evidence for the clandestine removal of their cultural heritage by the enough moral ground and a scientific basis on which the object colonisers, as it is well known that such evidence with legal validity would need to be repatriated to the society of its origin, if the latter was seldom created and, if in some rare cases it was, it would hardly staked a claim on it. have survived until today. In fact, instead of expecting the former Regrettably, within the hierarchy of legitimacy of a museum ob- colonies to produce legal evidence for the provenance of their objects ject, the ethical generally ranks below the legal. However, the ethi- in Western museums, it would be more logical that the latter should cal lens would work rather effectively in provenance and restitu- produce valid documentation for the objects’ acquisition. Endeavours tion research with regard to the large number of objects collected for reconstructing the national composite consciousness of societies by defacing or vandalizing public places of worship, which are not damaged during colonial rule needs to be ethically dealt with, and not the personal property of individuals and thus render their sale to merely through bureaucratic and detective methods, as the latter collectors and museums impossible – at least officially. The scores were already instrumental in destroying their moral, cultural and so- of stone sculptures and relief panels from the South and Southeast cial fabric to a large extent. In this situation, provenance research on Asian countries can serve as an example here. Currently displayed 126 – JYOTINDRA JAIN 127 – JYOTINDRA JAIN in museums the world over, many were evidently detached from ancient Hindu temples and Buddhist stupas, and a sincere art-historically oriented provenance research would quite likely enable the identification of the exact monument and sometimes even the spot where these once belonged. Once the provenance of such estranged sculptural fragments is established, does it not become a moral duty of the art collectors and museums to restore the fragment to the offcuts left behind from which these came, especially when the museums claim to be institutions dedicated to the high ideals of the protection, restoration and universalist conception8 of cultural property instead of celebrating the aesthetics of fragments, which regularly serve as a canon for writing art-histories? The bizarre sight of a head of the Buddha or a Hindu deity severed from a full stone figure in situ, now mounted on a pedestal, often with a rod inserted into the neck to hold it in position, has become a common occurrence in the museums and galleries of Asian art [Fig. 1]. We have got so accustomed to the self-contained aesthetics of these reconfigured tableaux of violence and fragmentation originating from the cosy and charmingly lit museum displays that we forget that more often than not this museum convention of cryptic quotes from another context has roots in wide-spread and inordinate colonial and neo-colonial collecting practices. How is it that a host of severed sculptural heads of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain icons are resting uneasy on museum pedestals while their headless counterparts, the torsos, are lying scattered in the distant countries of their origin, and the absurdity of the situation does not shake up our conscience? Even the ancient Indian shilpashastras, the constituted canons of the arts and architecture, including the tenets for materials, forms, 128 – JYOTINDRA JAIN Fig. 1 Head of a Buddha, red sandstone, height: 7.75 in, width: 4.25 in, depth: 4.125 in, Mathura (India), 2nd century, Victoria & Albert Museum, London structure and iconographies of the sacred images, especially in the precedent as a typological category of colonial transfers of Indian context of the Hindu temple but also other forms of architecture, art works from the angle of provenance research. The case of the never endorsed making a separate head or bust of any of their dei- Amaravati Stupa9 (ca. first century BC to second century AD and ties for ritual use, nor does a scrutiny of scores of ancient worship later) pertains to the mid-19th century consignment of approxi- images of the Buddha and of Hindu deities reveal that they were mately 120 extremely rare objects, “the greatest collection of Indian ever represented merely by their head or bust. In fact, any rupture religious sculpture outside the Indian sub-continent”,10 to Britain of the sacred image was considered a blemish and not regarded from the southern Indian archaeological site of Amaravati, excavat- worthy of worship. Any attempt at provenance research with regard ed by British officials in 1845 and later. According to a former keep- to such Indian objects in museums needs to display this informa- er of the Department of Oriental Antiquities of the British Muse- tion for the viewing public. The Orientalist practice of classifica- um, the Amaravati sculptures “proudly stand equal with the greatest tion of the various racial groups of the world was based on the ty- art of the ancient world.”11 A large hoard of the sculptures from the pology of the human head (cranial index), for which facial imprints site of excavation was initially relocated to a place in the city of from living “specimens” were taken to create molds (similar to the Madras (now Chennai) and eventually to the Madras Museum, German practice of making “Totenmasken” or death masks from where they remained “uncared for, and exposed to the elements in deceased persons in memoriam) so that they could be cast as masks. the green … In 1853 the Court of Directors made inquiries respecting A few such masks of living Indian racial types were made by the the pieces which were then placed in the front entrance of the Cen- Schlagintweit brothers, three mid-19th century German explorers, tral Museum, more or less exposed to the afternoon sun, but other- which are on display at the Bhau Daji Lad Museum (formerly the wise sheltered.”12 In 1859 a collection of 121 pieces was transferred to V&A Museum) in Mumbai [Fig. 2]. As can also be deduced from London,13 apparently on the ground that their condition at the Ma- European traditions of portraiture, the Western classical notion of dras Museum was deteriorating for atmospheric reasons. In Lon- exalting the human head as seat of rational individuality, which don, the sculptures were housed at different institutions for more seems to lurk behind the preferred museum display of heads sepa- than three decades before being allocated to the British Museum. It rated from their bodies, and the Hindu, Buddhist or Jain ideal of is on record that, ironically, during this period (between the 1850s akhanda or “un-broken” clearly stem from two divergent traditions. and the 1990s) the sculptures also suffered varying degrees of ero- Let me take one example of a large-scale transfer of almost an sion and deterioration on account of the humid climate of Lon- entire Indian monument – the ancient and unique Buddhist stupa don,14 after which these were displayed in a gallery with controlled of Amaravati to Britain – during colonial rule. My intention here is pollution and humidity. The combined records of the British East not to produce a whole inventory of such colonial relocations of India Company and the subsequent ones in Britain provide a near Indian art objects (which are enormous), but to use the Amaravati complete itinerary of transference of these sculptures to Britain. 130 – JYOTINDRA JAIN 131 – JYOTINDRA JAIN Noticeably, the sculptures were shipped to Britain “under the order of the Court of Directors” (of the East India Company).15 Today the museums in India have in their collections no more than a couple of dozen of relatively minor fragments from the great stupa of Amaravati, and it would be legitimate and ethically justifiable if India would lay claim to these sculptures and for Britain to consider if restitution is within the scope of decolonization. One specific example of the efficacy of provenance research pertains to a highly successful exercise of identifying missing fragments from Angkor published in the new edition of the book One Hundred Missing Objects: Looting in Angkor.16 This provenance research, pertaining to a range of severed heads and bodies from Angkor now in the custody of Western museums, antique dealers and collectors, has led to the identification of their present location and in several cases the records of their journeys to the West. The research has led to the voluntary restitution of a few objects to Cambodia, and several others are currently under negotiation. This could serve as a model for similar work with regard to Indian temple fragments. Clear cases of the removal of sculptures from architectural monuments anywhere in the world, their dispersal and display in different museums would only need art-historical and archaeological evidence of their origin in terms of provenance research and a deep ethical conscience to consider restoring the fragments to the sites/ society from where they came. * Let me end with a note on the recently proposed notion of decolFig. 2 Bronze-cast head of “Bairo, Santal, Radzmahal, Bengal”, of Schlagintweits Collection of Ethnographic Heads 1854 – 1858, collection: Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai onization of museums, mainly comprising long-term loans, travelling exhibitions and digital sharing of the colonially acquired objects with the former colonies on the one hand, and the divergent 133 – JYOTINDRA JAIN arguments in favour of or against the idea of universal museums on Western terms, which cannot be better summarised than in the the other, and such other temporary measures of conciliation. words of Alfred Gell: “The project of ‘indigenous aesthetics’ is es- Though such measures as long-term loan, and similar ones, could sentially geared to refining and expanding the aesthetic sensitivi- be seen as welcome first steps towards decolonization, there is ties of the Western art public by providing a cultural context within equally a scope for the source societies to see their acceptance as which non-Western art objects can be assimilated to the categories measures by which the source societies would, by extension, relin- of Western aesthetic art-appreciation.”21 Clearly the emphatic stance quish their possible claim to ownership and future endeavour for of the Declaration would need to be more dialogical to provide repatriation of their cultural property.17 space for deliberation on the related issues of provenance research/ It would be hard to discuss the concept of universal museums as restitution in the conceivably open framework of decolonization. promulgated in the Declaration on the importance and value of universal mu- The concept and methodology of decolonization itself would need seums18 within the framework of decolonization of collections, as, to be a central issue for discussion under the rubric of provenance right at the outset, it rules out any discussion on repatriation on the research and not an alternative to it. ground that “Over time, objects so acquired – whether by purchase, In many ways the Humboldt Forum has been at the centre of the gift, or partage – have become part of the museums that have cared current debate on provenance research and the issue of restitution for them, and by extension part of the heritage of the nations which of cultural property to source societies. Therefore, there is all the house them.” A possible counter argument to this could be that more reason for establishing a full-fledged centre of provenance when caring for and housing cultural objects “over time”, which were research within its purview to which the notion of decolonization simply taken over from the colonised societies under the conditions too, can be hinged. To recognize the issue of curating other cultures of power imbalance, are prioritised over the centuries-old genesis, in the Western museums in their decolonizing strategy, the Hum- care and social usage and this is made to appear outright meagre and boldt Forum may need to take cognizance of the fact that the injudi- inadequate, there would be little scope left for any dialogue within cious and hierarchical colonial binaries of art and ethnography and the apparently liberal objective of decolonization. classical and folk, etc., and question the analogous texts built around 19 Moreover, the Declaration accentuates the new context that the them in favour of post-colonial perspectives and discourses. museum provides to the objects displaced from their original cultural context: “Today we are especially sensitive to the subject of a work’s original context, but we should not lose sight of the fact that museums too provide a valid and valuable context for objects that were long ago displaced from the original source.”20 The “valid and valuable context” also may be seen, in its essence, as based fully on 134 – JYOTINDRA JAIN 135 – JYOTINDRA JAIN 1 Alfred Gell, Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory (Oxford 1998), 3. 2 American Association of Museums, “Code of Ethics for Museums”, https://www.aam-us. org/programs/ethics-standards-and-professional-practices/code-of-ethics-for-museums/, [accessed on 22 January 2020]. 3 ICOM, “Code of Ethics for Museums”: https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/ 2018/07/ICOM-code-En-web.pdf, [accessed on 22 January 2020], 9, para 2.3. 4 Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow, “Plea for the Return of an Irreplaceable Cultural Heritage to 16 International Council of Museums (ICOM) in collab. with / en collab. avec l’École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), eds., One Hundred Missing Objects. Looting in Angkor / Cent objets disparus. Pillage à Angkor (Paris: ICOM, EFEO, 1997). 17 Digital sharing of the complete inventories of the colonial acquisitions with the former colonial societies would be just the first legitimate and credible step towards the decolonization of art treasures and a true beginning of fair provenance research. 18 See note 8. those who Created it”, 7 June 1978, www.unesco.org/culture/aws/pdf/PleaforReturn_ 19 Ibid. DG_1978.pdf, [accessed on 22 January 2020]. 20 Ibid. 5 The report on The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics (in 21 Gell, see note 1, 3. French: Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel africain. Vers une nouvelle ethique relationnelle) is a report written by the Senegalese academic and writer Felwine Sarr and the French art historian Bénédicte Savoy, published online in November 2018 in an official French version and an English translation, restitutionreport2018.com. 6 Neil G. W. Curtis, “Universal Museums, Museum Objects and Repatriation: The Tangled Stories of Things”, in Museum Management and Curatorship 21/2 (2006), 117 – 127. 7 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London/New York, reprint 2003), 179. 8 “Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums”, in ICOM News 1 (2004), 4: http://archives.icom.museum/pdf/E_news2004/p4_2004-1.pdf [accessed on 3 February 2020]. 9 Given below is a short summary of the multiple transfers of Amaravati sculptures in various lots within India and eventually to London. For details, see Robert Knox, Amaravati: Buddhist Sculpture from the Great Stupa (London 1992), 17 – 22. Chapter II is an apt example of reconstruction of provenance of a colonially acquired Indian art treasure. 10 Amit Roy, “British Museum displays masterpieces of Buddhist sculptures from Amaravati”, in India Today, on 21-12-2012: https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/ 19921231-british-museum-displays-masterpieces-of-buddhist-sculptures-from-amravati767336-2012-12-21 [accessed on 4 August 2019]. 11 Jessica Rawson, in Preface, Knox, see note 9, 7. 12 Quoting Burgess (1887), Knox, see note 9, 18. 13 This was done “on the requisition of Edward Balfour, and ‘under the order of the Court of Directors [they] were shipped at the Public Expense, direct to the India Office in London’ …”, Knox, see note 9, 18. 14 “Regrettably, at the arrival at Beale’s Wharf, Southwark, they lay neglected for a year before a place was found for them in the new India Museum at Fife House, Whitehall”, Knox, ibid. See also Knox, 20: “… the Amaravati marbles needed to be ‘protected from action of the atmosphere or from mischievous handling’.” 15 The East India Company, founded in 1600 by the British Royal Charter, was a joint stock trading company operating in India and which eventually acquired military and political control in the South Asian region until it was taken over by the British Crown in 1858. 136 – JYOTINDRA JAIN 137 – JYOTINDRA JAIN IMAGE CREDITS LEE CHOR LIN Fig. 1 Reproduced by Special Collections, National University of Singapore Libraries Fig. 2 – 3 Private collection GEORGE OKELLO ABUNGU Fig. 1 – 5 Photographer: Okoko Ashikoye, National Museums of Kenya (NMK) JYOTINDRA JAIN Fig. 1 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Museum number: IM.3-1927) Fig. 2 © Jyotindra Jain HU WEI Fig. 1 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Asian Art Museum, OAS1991-3 (photographer: Jürgen Liepe) Fig. 2 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Asian Art Museum Fig. 3 © Lars-Christian Koch / Hu Wei 249 – IMAGE CREDITS IMPRINT Edited by Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss Concept and project management: Dortje Fink, Martina Urioste-Buschmann Text editing: Dortje Fink, Susanne Müller-Wolff, Amel Ouaissa Special thanks to Anne Gaffrontke, Tarek Ibrahim and Meral Karacaoglan. 1st edition 2021 © 2021 Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, Unter den Linden 3, 10117 Berlin and Hanser Corporate im Carl Hanser Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich www.humboldtforum.org External links provided in the text were active and correct at the time this book was published. Neither the editors nor the publisher have any influence on later changes and can therefore assume no liability for them. The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic information is available at https://www.dnb.de/EN/. Publisher’s project management: Elisabeth Heueisen Cover, typesetting and design: la Voila, Marion Blomeyer, Munich Translation: Leinhäuser Language Services GmbH, Unterhaching Printing and binding: Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg Printed in Germany. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-3-446-26642-1 Addressing colonial history and (post)colonial continuities is a major challenge for the Humboldt Forum, and will decisively shape the activities of this cultural institution. This volume features essays and conversations of prominent museum experts from around the world who have supported and advised the Humboldt Forum in its development. Through their statements, they take part in international discussions such as the intense debate about provenance and restitution of ethnological collections. Includes contributions from George Okello Abungu (Nairobi), Kwame Anthony Appiah (New York), Philipp Blom (Vienna), Hartmut Dorgerloh (Berlin), Rita Eder (Mexico City), Hu Wei (Shanghai), Jyotindra Jain (New Delhi), Lars-Christian Koch (Berlin), Lee Chor Lin (Singapore), Neil MacGregor (London), Natalia Majluf (Lima), Wayne Modest (Amsterdam), Nazan Ölçer (Istanbul), Barbara Plankensteiner (Hamburg), Thomas Thiemeyer (Tübingen), and Abdoulaye Touré (Dakar). € 18,– [D] € 18,50 [A] WG 559 ISBN 978-3-446-26642-1