14/09/20
 
About DCNtR:
DECOLONIZING COLLECTIONS – NETWORKING TOWARDS RELATIONALITY   Decolonizing – This blog is aimed at decentering the debate on colonial and ethnographic collections, archives, and museums. Its goal is to rethink colonial knowledges and dominant epistemic practices in an attempt to undo them. We seek to destabilize center-periphery divisions by providing a platform for diverse voices […]

Rewrite this archive
Voices from the conference 'Museum Collections in Motion‘
  Paul Tichmann: Historian, Iziko Museums of South Africa Paul Tichmann is a doctoral student in the History department at the University of the Western Cape. He is the Director of the Collections and Digitisation department at the Iziko Museums of South Africa and was formerly the curator of the Iziko Slave Lodge Museum in […]

Create a dialogue with people from all over the world about the objects we hold
Voices from the conference 'Museum Collections in Motion‘
  Stefanie Bach: Curator, State Ethnographic Collections Saxony Stefanie Bach is a curator for Global Art History with special reference to Africa at the Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig, State Art Collections Dresden, Germany. She was a curatorial assistant at the Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden and the Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig from […]

History is on our side
Voices from the conference 'Museum Collections in Motion‘
  Folarin Shyllon: Legal scholar, University of Ibadan, Nigeria Folarin Shyllon read law at King’s College London. He is the Chairperson of Nigerian Chapter UNESCO Memory of the World Committee. He specializes in cultural property law and intellectual property law. He is the author of Intellectual Property Law in Nigeria (C.H. Beck, Munich, Germany, 2003), […]

We must de-ethnographize the objects
Voices from the conference 'Museum Collections in Motion‘
  El Hadji Malick Ndiaye: Art historian and curator, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar El Hadji Malick Ndiaye is an art historian based at Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Senegal. He holds a PhD in Art History (University of Rennes II. France) and is a former postdoc of the Center for Research in […]

The postcolonial museum has less objects and more people in it
Voices from the conference 'Museum Collections in Motion‘
  Bernard Müller: Anthropologist and curator, Cologne Bernard Müller is an anthropologist and curator based in Cologne. He studies research devices inspired by the ethnographic field, as they develop today in and outside scientific institutions. He is particularly interested in staging processes, be they scenic devices (theater, rituals, performance, etc.), museum scenographies or any situation […]

Bring up what is hidden about German colonialism
Voices from the conference 'Museum Collections in Motion‘
  Mnyaka Sururu Mboro: teacher & board member of Berlin Postkolonial Mnyaka Sururu Mboro, born 1951 near the Kilimandjaro in today’s Tanzania, is based in Berlin. Retired as a teacher he is still an activist, co-founder and board member of the non-government organisation Berlin Postkolonial. Mboro is actively committed to commemorate German colonial crimes in […]

The Fundamental Problem of Ethnography and Colonialism
Some thoughts on two exhibitions in Berlin’s House of World Cultures
Through 6 January 2020 in the House of World Cultures in Berlin, one can still visit two exhibitions that have several things in common. The first is not unusual, but rather everyday museum practice. Both exhibitions are devoted to the work of dead, white, German men. “Spectral White: The Appearance of Colonial-Era Europeans” deals with […]

Review: Curatopia. Museums and the Future of Curatorship
A Review by Samuel Bachmann
Schorch, Philipp; McCarthy, Conal (eds.): Curatopia. Museums and the Future of Curatorship. University Press, Manchester (2019). ISBN: 978-1-5261-1819-6.[1] Me, the curator Next to my daily affairs as a curator, there is hardly any time for reflexivity given the versatility of duties I am potentially responsible for. Did I take stock of the recently accepted donations? […]

Colonial Collectors and their Legacy
Why Asking “Why?” Matters
At the time of writing, the conference Museum Collections in Motion lies only weeks in the past and its impacts, its questions and discussions still move me. For all its moments of connection and shared ideals, it was not a harmonious conference. Especially in the beginning, it seemed like mistrust could win over and end […]

The Brachiosaurus brancai in the Natural History Museum Berlin
A Star Exhibit of Natural History as a German and Tanzanian Realm of Memory?
This contribution deals with the area of natural history, a field which to date has remained outside the focus of the research and debates surrounding looted art and the theft of cultural assets and has scarcely featured as a topic in the history of remembrance. The focus here is on a scientific object, the skeleton […]