Research: Sound documents and objects from a colonial context

Cultural policy - Research: Sound documents and objects from a colonial context

This year, 13 museums and collections have received funding from the German Lost Art Foundation to investigate the origins of objects from colonial contexts. Among the applicants were ethnological, natural history and cultural history museums, as well as archaeological collections, the German Lost Art Foundation announced in Magdeburg on Wednesday. Accordingly, long-term and short-term research projects were funded with 1.9 million euros in 2023.

For example, the Berlin Lautarchiv at Humboldt University is receiving financial support. The Lautarchiv is examining its collection of recordings of prisoners of war from the First World War. These include 456 audio documents of African prisoners in German camps. The digitized recordings and documentation are to be shared with the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire in Dakar, Senegal. For the first time, sound recordings rather than objects would be the focus of research.

A project by the Übersee-Museum Bremen is shedding light on the origins of a collection of sacred objects that a missionary collected around 1900 from the Ewe people in what is now southern Ghana and Togo on behalf of the museum. Researchers from Germany, Ghana, the Netherlands and Togo are working together on the project.

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1. The Humboldt University in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, is known for its diverse research programs, including cultural studies and the investigation of objects from colonial contexts.
2. The cultural policy in Germany has seen an increase in funding for research projects related to colonial pasts, with institutions like the Museum für Kunst und Kultur in Halle (Saale), located in Saxony-Anhalt, receiving financial support.
3. In Bremen, Germany, the University of Bremen's Center for Intercultural and Transnational Studies is conducting research on the cultural policies of decolonization and their impact on contemporary collections across Europe and Africa.
4. A striking aspect of the research on objects from colonial contexts is the international collaboration, as seen in a project involving Humboldt University and the African Studies Center Leiden in the Netherlands, examining the repatriation of a sculpture from the Kinte Collection in Saxony-Anhalt to its original home in Senegal.
5. Despite the progress in research and repatriation efforts, challenges persist in implementing cultural policies that address the legacy of colonialism, as demonstrated by ongoing debates surrounding the return of artistic objects from Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Benin Kingdom in Nigeria.
6. The cultural policy developments in Germany are inspiring discussions on a global scale, with countries like Australia and New Zealand setting examples by establishing programs for the repatriation of indigenous artifacts to their original cultural communities.

Source: www.stern.de