Dedicated to engaged research on translocations of cultural heritage and facilitating exchanges on futures of museum holdings
LinKnow - Linking Knowledge for Restitution e.V. is dedicated to engaged research on translocations of cultural heritage (or rather: artifacts and entities turned into museum objects) and to facilitate exchanges and dialogue on futures of museum holdings with their respective origins.
Recently, discussions about European museum collections appropriated during colonialism/in colonial contexts have gained new momentum, also on a global level. The origins and itineraries of material culture are addressed within a growing field of postcolonial provenance research. This involves the systematic analysis of the intertwining of an item's or a collection's history with colonial knowledge and power relations. From the very beginning, this research must therefore consider the restitution of the cultural assets in question - i.e. giving them back to the rightful owners - as part of a process of reparative justice.
However, one can observe significant difficulties in bridging knowledge so as to transcend the colonial archive, on the one hand, and a conspicuous array of challenges and hurdles that stakeholders and communities/ societies of descent face locating and reclaiming cultural heritage.
We are therefore committed to facilitating exchanges, interdisciplinarily and engaging diverse knowledge, between museums and interested parties. We seek initiating projects for postcolonial provenance research and restitution, in an attempt of playing a facilitating and mediating role.
Our aims involve, first of and foremost, researching the content of museum storages and respective archives and sparking and facilitating exchanges on the future of unrightfully withdrawn cultural heritage and on means of addressing expropriation and loss. As material heritage was often distributed to various institutions after its colonial appropriation, cross-institutional research plays a central role in our work.
Beyond the return of material heritage, the focus of our project is on the potential that can unfold from the processes of exchange in terms of new ethical relations. We therefore seek to establish stable and sustainable relationships that can evolve in different formats. In consultation with the communities/ societies of descent, we are e.g. interested in joint workshops or outreach programs such as exhibition-making. The promotion of international co-operation and community-based curating such as artistic collaboration and curatorial intervention is therefore an integral part of our vision.
We see restitution and the processes that evolve around it as a chance which implies a variety of actors and can have a unifying and democratizing effect on all societies implicated. The material cultural heritage in question has become part of a complex and often violent transcultural history. Its restitution could make it mediators in re-balancing this relation for the benefit of the people who have lived with the effects of loss and exploitation throughout the last century.
Our collaborative work began in August 2022, when we all met at the GRASSI Museum in Leipzig. What brought us together was our shared interest in a collection from the kingdom of Dagbon in present day Ghana. The items under investigation were looted during German colonialism in the region. During a research trip to Dagbon in November 2022, we learned that Dagomba stakeholders know about the lootings and sorely miss the respective items. This was a key moment in realizing that linking of knowledge from the items' regions of origin with archival information from the institutions holding them today is essential. This experience gave rise to the idea of joining forces as a group in order to apply for a project that envisages the restitution of looted items from Dagbon.
Our team combines experiences from a broad disciplinary field which includes postcolonial provenance research as well as artistic and archival research, international collaboration and community-based curating and outreach.
Learn more about our teamWe are applying for funding for a project that conducts systematic research into the collections from Dagbon in Germany. The core of the project is to deepen and consolidate the relationships already established with representatives from Dagbon and a network of researchers in Ghana. Through the joint exchange, we want to classify the provenance histories of the collections under investigation with regard to their unlawful appropriation. On the basis of the collection histories, we want to work on a transnational remembrance of the lootings and the subsequent German colonial rule. Part of this is working towards the return of cultural property to Dagbon.
