Virtual Gathering organized by the Goethe Institut London On Digital Access and Ownership

Lives of Objects: Online Gathering #3 illuminates the contrast between African-led and European approaches to digital accessibility and transparency, giving attention to important initiatives such as the Ghana Restitution Inventory Project and Digital Benin. In this discussion, Karen Ijumba, senior researcher of Open Restitution Africa, is joined by Anne Luther, a specialist for digital heritage and a digital humanities scholar and principal investigator for Digital Benin, by Eiloghosa Oghogho Obobaifo, Nigerian anthropologist and researcher, and member of the Digital Benin Project, and by Temi Odumosu, an art historian, curator and assistant professor at the University of Washington Information School in Seattle (USA).

Instagram Live Talk on Digital Restitution with Medhavi Ghandi in the #Heritage_Digitised Program at the Goethe Institut

For restitution, it is important that institutions have a sound approach to digital collections inventories and records of provenance. This allows institutions to identify collections that were acquired as a consequence of unequal power relationships and leads to the ethical question on the right of institutions to facilitate digital access, ownership and authorship. Institutions with access to digital infrastructure and technology, have to ask for permission to digitise and store digital assets during and after restitution processes. Not doing so re-establishes the colonial power structure by prohibiting & restricting the original community’s agency over their own cultural heritage.

Digital Benin presented at ICOM-IMREC expert seminar at Shanghai University on museums, decolonisation and restitution

Issues of emerging significance for the world’s museums are the core of ICOM-IMREC’s work. Through an expert seminar of academics and museum practitioners from across the globe, ICOM-IMREC will examine the challenges, opportunities, implications and impacts of decolonising museums and returning objects. The seminar takes place in Shanghai over two full days from 9:00 am-5:00 pm CST. On March 20th, keynote papers, sessions and panels will explore how decolonising museums impacts institutional structure, intellectual frameworks, power-sharing with communities and professional practice. On March 21st the experts examine the impact of restitution on communities, the role of legal systems and policy frameworks, the part that digital is playing and a critical look at some successful repatriation projects.

Digital Benin Launch, Edo Summit Benin City, Nigeria

Digital Benin launched on November 18, 2022 at the Edo Summit in Benin City. The platform brings together all objects and rich documentation material from collections worldwide to provide a long-awaited overview of the artefacts from the Kingdom of Benin looted in the late nineteenth century. The historic objects were originally used as royal representational arts to depict historical events, to communicate, to worship and perform rituals. The digital platform enables new knowledge production by connecting digital documentation of the translocated objects with oral histories, object research, historical context, a foundational Edo language catalogue, provenance names, a map of the Benin Kingdom and museum collections worldwide. Digital Benin unites data on 5240 objects from 131 institutions in 20 countries. 

Humboldt Forum

The discussion emerges with a key lecture by Dr. Temi Odumosu titled ‘Colonial JPEGs and haunted code: Historical redress in the open digital commons‘. Drawing on research in the context of Nordic photographic collections, Odumosu asks ‘what it means for African cultural resources to dematerialize and become data?’ The impulse is followed by reverberating responses and an open discussion with Dr. Anne Luther, founder of the Institute for Digital Heritage and principal investigator of Digital Benin, Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie, principal researcher in Digital Benin, Chao Tayiana and Molemo Moiloa, founders of “Open Restitution Africa” and current fellows of the ‘99 Questions‘ residency program.

German Museum Association

With the 2021 annual conference, we focused on digital collection work and discussed how digital collection work affects the museum as a whole and what opportunities arise from it. The annual conference of the German Museum Association is the largest museum conference in Germany. It offers specialist lectures and an exchange of experiences on current museum topics as well as the opportunity to network with museum experts and speakers from Germany and abroad.

German Federal Cultural Foundation

How can cultural institutions react to the diverse technological innovations? What forms of artistic production, mediation and communication do you advance? Which methods and working methods support the digital change in institutions? The Digital Fund ( Kultur Digital program ) supports cultural institutions in implementing trend-setting digital projects and experimenting with digital aesthetics and formats. The Federal Cultural Foundation organizes accompanying academies - the Digital Labs - to provide the sponsored houses with professional support and to promote mutual exchange