The concept of decolonising museums means different things in different parts of the world. ICOM, the International Council of Museums, established a Working Group on Decolonisation. The Working Group will meet in June in the Netherlands, and during this conference they will share experiences from their daily practice, offering a broad variety of perspectives.
Speakers from Barbados, Benin, Canada, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Taiwan and Zambia, as well as from European countries, will shed light on what decolonisation means for their work. Many museums were established through colonialism. Discussions will include how to decolonise archival and artifact collections, how to work with diaspora communities and Indigenous peoples to reconcile colonial histories, how to renew conventional colonial museums and unpack colonial legacies, how to build a museum in the post-colonial era, the challenges countries and communities of origin meet in claiming back their cultural belongings, and what working in this field implies for the wellbeing of museum staff.
All speakers and moderators are members of the ICOM Working Group on Decolonisation. The conference is organised by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, in collaboration with ICOM, ICOM Netherlands, DutchCulture and Unesco NL.
Registration
Admission to this event is free. You can register via the button below and choose your preference for participation (online or Amersfoort).
This event has reached its maximum capacity on location. You can still register for online participation.
Welcome, Susan Lammers (General director Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands)
Introduction, Hanna Pennock (Senior advisor, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands)
10.10
Body art and its origin in Igbo Land, Anambra State, Southeast Nigeria, Ozueigbo Chinedu Ishola (Assistant director National Museum of Colonial History, Aba, Nigeria)
International approaches to decolonisation?! The exhibition "Hey Hamburg, do you know Duala Manga Bell?", Suy Lan Hopmann (Programme curator, Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Germany)
Balancing act: Nurturing staff wellbeing amidst challenging histories in museum collections, Abeer Eladany (Curatorial Assistant (Collection Access), University of Aberdeen, Scotland)
11.20
Break
11.40
Development of the museums in post-colonial Pakistan, Asma Ibrahim (Director Archives & Art Gallery, State Bank Museum, Karachi, Pakistan)
museum as landscape, not portrait..., prachi (Freelance museum design consultant, New Delhi, India)
12.30
Lunch
13.30
Colonial memories and migrant narratives at the Museum of Ethnology and World Cultures, Barcelona, Camila Opazo (Doctoral candidate in Society and Culture, University of Barcelona, Spain)
Incorporating cultural diversity into the efforts in raising awareness of sustainability issues: An approach to decolonising the museum, Phaedra Fang (Assistant researcher, National Taiwan Museum, Taipeh, Taiwan)
Unpacking colonial legacies through co-curatorship: Perspectives from Barbados, Natalie McGuire (Curator Social History and Community Engagement, Barbados Museum & Historical Society, Barbados)
14.45
Break
15.00
Decolonising the photographic archives of Benin, Carly Degbelo (Director, Diocesan Centre for Religious Heritage, Porto-Novo, Benin)
Canadian perspectives following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Catherine Cole (Principal Consultant at Catherine C. Cole & Associates, Canada)
The complexities of restitution and repatriation efforts for Africans, Terry Simioti Nyambe (Museum development officer, National Museums Board, Lusaka, Zambia)
16.30
Drinks
The symposium will be moderated by Isabel Beirigo, Rachelle Kalee and Hanna Pennock.
Speakers and moderators
Isabel Beirigo is research communication specialist at Sound & Vision for international projects. She is currently dedicated to the use of digital technologies to enhance accessibility to cultural heritage. With a focus on decolonisation of CHIs, she collaborates with underrepresented groups to bring more polyvocal perspectives to cultural collections, transforming cultural institutions into facilitators of cultural heritage.
Catherine Cole is Principal Consultant at Catherine C. Cole & Associates. Before that she was the Director of Planning for the Inuit Heritage Trust, developing the Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre in Iqaluit, an Inuit-led initiative. She has been an independent consultant and museum specialist for more than 30 years and was previously a museum curator and historic site interpreter. In recent years, her focus has been on the decolonisation of museums and heritage sites throughout Canada as the Culture and Heritage Community Chair for the National Indigenous Knowledge and Language Alliance, an advisor to Parks Canada, the national parks service, and a member of the Geographical Names Board of Canada. Catherine is a board member of ICOM Canada, and former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Association of Museums.
Carly Degbelo is a Catholic priest and curator of religious heritage. He holds a Master 2 in Cultural Heritage and Tourism from Senghor University in Alexandria. As such, he runs the Diocesan Centre for Religious Heritage in Porto-Novo. His research focuses on the decolonisation of missionary museums in the West and the provenance of cultural property from the colonial era in Africa. Specifically, he is working on the photographic collections and the African art collections of the Lyon missionaries in France. The project of the centre of which he is director and curator is to set up a decolonial museum based on the inculturation of the values received during colonisation. The aim is not to reject, but to integrate for a peaceful cultural dialogue.
Abeer Eladany is a curatorial assistant at the University of Aberdeen Museums and Special Collections. She is a museum professional, an archaeologist, an activist and a mental health first aider. She is a member of the Empire Slavery and Scotland’s Museums steering group that produced recommendations for the Scottish Government on how museums in Scotland can deal with the legacies of slavery and empire within their collections. Abeer has also worked in the Egyptian Museum at the start of her career in Egypt and has over 30 years of experience working in the sector.
Phaedra Hui-Shih FANG currently works at National Taiwan Museum as an assistant researcher of the Education Department, and as a freelance translator. She holds a master’s in zoology and a Ph.D. candidacy in the International Program of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at National Taiwan University. Her academic interests include sustainability education in museums, citizen science, and the culinary cultures of Taiwan. With partners, she curated the special exhibitions including ‘Watch Out! Elephants Coming!’ and ‘Sustainable New Years’ Dinner Tables – Dining in the Anthropocene’. She also initiated the International Docent Training Program for her museum, creating a polyvocal space for the young generation to learn and introduce the museum.
As a curator at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society, Natalie McGuire centers her practice on community-led methodology in museology of the global South and its exchanges with the post-empire global North. Having completed a BA in History of Art at the University of Leicester and an MA in Museums and Cultural Heritage at the University of Auckland, she is currently a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill with a research focus on Caribbean museology. Natalie is Vice Chair for ICOM Barbados, a member of the executive board for The International Committee for Museology Latin America and the Caribbean (ICOFOM LAC) and a board member of the Barbados National Art Gallery.
Suy Lan Hopmann is a programme curator at the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin. She works on the topics of colonialism and coloniality, racism and migration as well as gender and queer. Previously, she was responsible for Hamburg's decolonisation strategies at the city's Department of Media and Culture, and curator for special projects and diversity at the Museum am Rothenbaum - Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK). She also curated the exhibition "Hey Hamburg, do you know Duala Manga Bell?" on German-Cameroonian colonial history. She studied Chinese Studies, Gender Studies and Sociology and worked as a research associate at the Chair of Politics and Economics of China. Suy Lan is board member of ICOM Germany.
Asma Ibrahim is a senior Archaeologist/ Museologist & Conservationist. She is the founder and director of the Archives & Art Gallery department of the State Bank Museum. Prior to this, she served in different capacities with the dept. of Archaeology & Museums of the Government of Pakistan as curator and director for more than three decades. Her doctorate is in Numismatic, Post doctorate in Archaeological Chemistry with special studies on ancient human remains as a Fulbright scholar. Asma is Chair of the ICOM International Committee for Money and Banking Museums.
Rachelle Kalee works at ICOM Secretariat in the department of Capacity Building – Museums & Society. She is the secretary of the ICOM Working Group on Decolonisation.
Terry Simioti Nyambe works at the National Museums Board of Zambia and is responsible for all museum development programmes in Zambia. Before his current role, he has been a curator for over 20 years in the Natural History field. He is an Ecologist by profession. He has served in various portfolios in ICOM and now serves as one of the Vice Presidents of ICOM.
Camila Opazo is an activist and researcher, trained as an archaeologist and museologist. She has academic and professional experience in the field of the management of colonial legacies. Her interdisciplinary work includes dialogues between anthropology, memory and heritage studies, art, museology and archaeology. Her research interests are post- and decolonial studies, feminism, migrations and diasporic communities, subaltern memories and the decolonisation of museums. She is a doctoral candidate in Society and Culture in the University of Barcelona, and is a fellow of the National Agency of Research and Development of Chile.
Next to working at the National Museum of Colonial History, Ozueigbo Ishola Chinedu is a sculptor, art and fashion designer, and art historian. He also runs an Art Center (Promeu AB) and is Chair of the Society of Nigerian Artists in Abia State. His museum activities are centred around planning, organising and executing educational training, retraining staff in-house, guided tours and outreach programmes, exhibition plans and consultancy projects. Ozueigbo is co-chair of the ICOM Working Group on Decolonisation.
Hanna Pennock is an art historian and senior advisor at the Cultural Heritage Agency, specialising in colonial collections and decolonisation of museums. She is co-chair of the ICOM Working Group on Decolonisation.
prachi is a museum tinkerer and a freelance narrative & interpretation designer based in India. Her practice has been shaped by her long-held fascination with the idea and imagination of museums, and the profound influence of coloniality evident in these institutions. The conscience of a simple drawn element such as the line has framed her practice of 'where do we draw the line' from the literal visual to the conceptual, to unpacking identity politics sustained through different systems and institutions of power (knowledge, space, and medium)—with museums being at the heart of it.
