France and Germany launch joint fund to determine provenance of African artefacts in museums

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As a movement toward “Decolonizing” museums Expanding its footprint in Europe, France and Germany have launched a €2.1 million research fund to investigate the provenance of African cultural artifacts in each country’s national institutions.

This new fund aims to fund research projects focused on all cultural heritage sites in sub-Saharan Africa. Priority will be given to former French and German colonies such as Cameroon and Togo (which were colonies of both France and Germany, respectively).

Each country will contribute €360,000 per year to this three-year fund, which will be managed based on project demand.

The initiative was announced by the French and German culture ministries earlier this month. Submission forms for eligible projects are available online this week until April 30th.

The Center Marc Bloch, a Franco-German research center in the social sciences and humanities in Berlin, will manage the disbursement of the funds.

“The first year is going to be experimental,” said Dr. Julie Cicia, the foundation’s director of scientific projects and a Center Mark Block researcher. “In order to remain as open as possible, we placed as few budget and subject constraints on our eligibility criteria as possible.”

To qualify for funding, the project must have a German and French institutional team, have close relationships with African partners, and include museums and academics, according to Sisia. The research needs to include both.

“We want to know from a German and French perspective how new teams can emerge and new methods can emerge from the format,” Sisia told Euronews Culture.

Sisia says this is the first fund dedicated to international cooperation in provenance research and a major step towards pan-European cooperation on hot-button issues.

“This initiative shows that today’s German-French cooperation in the field of culture is working well. Also, the German and French Culture Ministries have agreed that after the trilateral cooperation, the German and French Culture Ministries will There is also an aspect of a pilot project, as we are thinking of starting the cooperation at a European level.”The experimental phase ended in 2018,” Sisia said.

Reparations efforts grow across Europe

Museums in Europe and North America are increasingly being called upon to rethink their approach to the indigenous and colonial artifacts they hold.

Most recently, the American Museum of Natural History in the United States closed two exhibits featuring Native American artifacts after new federal regulations required museums to obtain consent from tribes before exhibiting or examining cultural artifacts. announced the closure of a major building.

France and Germany are both working to find a framework for the return of African artefacts, making the issue a new priority for national policymakers.

In France, the move intensified after President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 speech in which he promised to rebuild strained relations with sub-Saharan Africa’s former colonies.

He said the return or loan of African artefacts housed in French cultural institutions would be a “top priority” for his administration.

President Macron: ‘African heritage cannot be captured by European museums’ Tweet After traveling to Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Ivory Coast.

France Return of 26 artifacts to Benin in 2021But repatriation efforts have stalled in recent years after legislation establishing a framework for the return of African artifacts hit a roadblock in Congress late last year.

Germany has also taken up the issue and signed an agreement.returns hundreds of artifacts Known as the Benin Bronze, it was first plundered by a British colonial expedition.

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To date, Berlin has returned to Nigeria about 20 bronze statues that were previously on display at the German National Museum. Its national collection contains the largest collection of African artefacts in the world.

Sisia said the new Franco-German fund will also enable new research into the circulation of cultural property from Africa, which will shed light on how cultural property crosses borders through international art dealers and cultural institutions. .