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- Good morning, everyone,
welcome to the opening event

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for the symposium repatriation,
restitution, and reparation,

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African Art in the University
Vermont's Fleming Museum.

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I'm Vicki Brennan, an Associate
Professor of Religion,

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and the Director of African
Studies here at UVM.

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I'm also part of a group of faculty

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and Fleming Museum staff

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who have organized this three day event.

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Last year, during the
2020/2021 academic year,

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this group met regularly to discuss issues

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of representation,
materiality and performance

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in relation to the Fleming's
collection of objects

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from communities on the African continent.

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This conversation took place
against the political backdrop

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of the events of 2020, in
which the ongoing violences

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of imperialism, settler colonialism

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and systemic racism
continue to be made manifest

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in instances such as the
Black Lives Matter protests

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that erupted nationally and globally,

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in reaction to the brutal
killing of George Floyd

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by police in Minneapolis,

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to the ongoing disparities of illness

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and death experienced by
black and ethnic communities

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in the US and worldwide
during the COVID 19 pandemic.

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So as we talked about the objects

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in the museum's collection,

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and tried to envision
new modes for the display

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in the museum, questions of repatriation,

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and restitution moved to the
forefront of our conversations.

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In part inspired by the publication

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of the book The Brutish Museum's

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by today's keynote speaker, Dr. Dan Hicks,

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our conversations quickly
expanded to a consideration

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of the lasting legacies of
colonialism and imperialism

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in the museum as a whole.

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Out of these discussions,

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the plan for this week symposium emerged.

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We're starting today with repatriation.

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Repatriation involves
the return of objects

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that were stolen from
communities in Africa

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as part of European colonialism.

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The presence of these plundered objects

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in Euro-American museums
contributes to ongoing

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imperial relationships and perspectives.

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The events we've organized this week

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center on what has become the signal event

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at stake in discussions of repatriation.

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The Benin expedition of 1897,

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in which British troops
invaded Benin City,

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killed an unknown number of civilians

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and other residents of the community

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and destroyed the palace.

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As part of this colonial
violence 1000s of artworks,

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including sculptures, brass
plates and carvings were taken.

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Many of these objects may now
be found in museum collections

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across Europe and the United States,

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including the Iyoba Queen Mother sculpture

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that's part of the UVM
Fleming Museum's collection.

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Today's events, which
include this morning's

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keynote lecture, and the
roundtable discussion

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on the politics and
processes of repatriation,

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will focus on why
repatriation is necessary,

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and how museums should
undertake this process.

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However, it's important
to state that repatriation

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is only the beginning of a
larger process of restitution.

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We want to ask how can the
museum and the university

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contribute materially to practices

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that lead to a process of repair

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to address these historical
and contemporary injustices.

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The events that we have
organized tomorrow,

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offer one way of thinking
through issues of restitution

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through an engagement with
how black artists reconcile

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with the past and look towards the future

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through an engagement with activism,

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artificial intelligence, performance,

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and other technologies and
practices of remediation.

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On Saturday morning, we'll
have a closing conversation

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that may end this symposium,

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but we hope it will be part
of a longer term process

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of thinking about what
reparation, restitution and repair

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would look like at the Fleming Museum

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and the University of Vermont,

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and will allow us to
develop concrete steps

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that will enable us to take action

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towards accountability and liberation.

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Before I introduce this
morning's keynote speaker

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who is going to begin our conversation

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about reparation, I wanna
first thank our sponsors.

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This symposium has been
generously supported

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by the University of
Vermont Humanities Center

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and the Fleming Museum of Art.

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Additional funds have been provided

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by the Department of Anthropology,

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Art and Art History, English and Religion,

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as well as the programs in African Studies

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and Global Studies.

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It is my pleasure to
introduce our keynote speaker

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this morning, whose book
"The Brutish Museum"

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set the table for the issues

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we're going to address this week.

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Dan Hicks is a Professor
of Contemporary Archeology

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at the University of Oxford.

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He's a curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum,

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and a Fellow of St
Cross College in Oxford.

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Dan works on the material
and visual culture

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of the human past up to
and including the modern

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colonial, contemporary and digital world,

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and on the history of
archeology, anthropology,

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art and architecture.

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While Dan has written many books,

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it's his most recent publication,

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The Brutish Museums: The Benin
Bronzes, Colonial Violence,

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and Cultural Restitution,
published in 2020,

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and I think just released in paperback,

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that draws us all together today.

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He's going to deliver a lecture
entitled The Brutish Museums

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that introduces some of the key arguments

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made in this inspirational
and forcefully argued text.

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So I wanna take this opportunity
to welcome him virtually

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to the University of Vermont.

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And I'm sure we're all looking forward

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to hearing his comments today.

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Just a quick note, before
I turn it over to Dan,

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there's going to be time for questions

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at the end of the lecture.

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But we'll use the chat feature,

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so that you can ask
questions of the lecturer.

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So please type your
questions into the chat.

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And with that, I'm gonna turn it over

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to our keynote lecturer.

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Thank you so much for being here, Dan.

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- Okay, wonderful, so
it's wonderful to be here.

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Hello, everyone and nice to see some names

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in the audience who I know.

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But also lovely to meet lots
of people who I don't know,

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I'm just gonna share my screen,

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so we can see the lecture slides.

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And if someone could just no

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or give me some indication
yeah okay, that's great.

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So I know that you can
see what we're looking at.

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I just wanted to say
that was an incredibly

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generous introduction, thank you so much.

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I think in terms of the ideas

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that I'm gonna be talking about,

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I would actually make the outset

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make a distinction between repatriation

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and actually restitution.

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So repatriation is a word that is bound up

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with the notion of the nation state,

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which is part of the legacy of empire

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that we're seeking here to resist.

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So actually, restitution
also allows us to think

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about the necessary
physical returns of objects,

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but also to think about
a wider set of debts

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that can be repaid in a whole host

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of actually really different ways.

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So hopefully that's a
useful initial thing to say.

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So in this lecture, I'm gonna talk to you

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for about half an hour, I
think I've been asked to speak

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for and then we're going to open it up,

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which of course, for me the greater joy,

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of these conversations with institutions

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holding Benin bronzes,
with their colleagues

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in Art History, Anthropology,
Archaeology around the world,

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with those with interest
in African Studies,

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in what some are calling the
decolonization of our museums

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and our institutions,
and what I prefer to see

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is the unfinished work
of anti-colonialism,

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and of course, anti-racism.

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The greater joy is to
learn how the book lands,

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what the conversations are in
different parts of the world.

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So I'm really looking forward to the Q&A

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and I put a link to the
book for those of you

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that would like to buy it not via Amazon,

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there's a link to the publisher,

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but also a link to one of the
important ideas in the book

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that I discuss in a journal issue,

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which is available online,

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there's a link to that
as well about the notion

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of the necrographic,
so they're in the chat.

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So let me just start off
really by talking to you,

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as is maybe appropriate,
but also maybe we need

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to do it in a bit of a
different way these days

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to talk about my positionality
in this conversation.

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And of course, that starts
off with the location

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in which we are sat.

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So I'm sitting here in Pitt Rivers Museum,

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just 30 yards away or so from this space

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that we see in front of us.

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It's an 1884, institutions built in 1884.

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It holds 300,000 objects
from around the world.

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It's a museum, which is a Department

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of the University of Oxford.

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It is a location from which I'm speaking,

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but obviously, it's also
important for me to talk

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about my positionality here,

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as a cis male or white curator
at an elite institution.

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My source of the privilege
includes aspects of my identity,

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but also access to knowledge as well,

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the sense that as a curator, I have access

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to understanding objects
that are so important

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for so many communities around the world.

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But I think these days, it's not enough

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simply to state one's privilege,

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because often that can serve
simply to reinforce it.

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It's not really enough anymore,

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as we would have done maybe
30 years ago to be reflexive.

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Because often the reflexive
turn in anthropology

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simply represented the
same anthropologist,

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the same figure of the
anthropologist of the patriarchal

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and the neocolonial, and arguably
the cultural supremacists,

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individual just a little
bit more self aware,

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a little bit more sensitive.

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In fact, our role in
talking about positionality

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has to start with a sense of
undermining that positionality,

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undermining that privilege.

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So to think about curation as an in part

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the role of seeking to dismantle

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what the book talks about
as the white infrastructure

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of these museums.

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So in the course of this talk,

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I want to convince you
of a number of things.

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But I guess a part of that
is the role that anthropology

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and art museums have
played and continue to play

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in the creation of if we use the language

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of Franz Fanon, we would
talk about the notion

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of the cultural racism.

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So the role of these institutions,

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not maybe if, again, if
we think about 30 years,

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how the notion of a museum anthropology

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might have talked about how an institution

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like the Pitt Rivers, how
any anthropology museum

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serves to create the
myth of the primitive,

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the myth of alterity, that uses culture,

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to divide certain cultures from others,

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because 1884 here in Oxford
was not only the year

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in which the Pitt Rivers was founded,

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and of course the year
of the Berlin Congress,

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where the European Nations decided

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to begin to carve up Africa
in between themselves

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to begin the so called
Scramble for Africa,

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one of those euphemisms
that serves to distract

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from the sheer level
of death and violence,

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experienced by African societies.

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And instead gives us an
idea that this was simply

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a bunch of Europeans
on a Boy Scout day out,

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elbowing each other out of the way.

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But 1884 was not only the founding

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of the Pitt Rivers Museum,

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and the year of the Berlin Congress.

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It was also the year of the founding

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of the Ashmolean Museum here in Oxford.

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So another Museum of Archaeology and Art,

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but one of the West and not the rest.

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This is a period of time
in anthropology's history,

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00:12:58,610 --> 00:13:01,920
where in terms of issues of nature,

257
00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:04,420
in terms of issues of the biological,

258
00:13:04,420 --> 00:13:07,070
we're very familiar with the idea

259
00:13:07,070 --> 00:13:11,440
that human remains,
skulls were put on display

260
00:13:11,440 --> 00:13:13,610
in our natural history museums,

261
00:13:13,610 --> 00:13:15,730
to tell the racist lie,

262
00:13:15,730 --> 00:13:17,670
that there are different species of human

263
00:13:17,670 --> 00:13:21,430
there are different types of humanity.

264
00:13:21,430 --> 00:13:24,710
But right next door to those institutions,

265
00:13:24,710 --> 00:13:27,660
I mean, literally here in Oxford,

266
00:13:27,660 --> 00:13:29,950
where the Pitt Rivers
Museum was built in 1884,

267
00:13:29,950 --> 00:13:33,640
as a physical extension to
the Natural History Museum

268
00:13:33,640 --> 00:13:35,060
that was founded in 1860.

269
00:13:38,570 --> 00:13:41,360
Having taken apart those racist displays

270
00:13:42,203 --> 00:13:45,550
in terms of stories of natural history,

271
00:13:45,550 --> 00:13:50,550
the same stories told with
art and cultural objects

272
00:13:51,490 --> 00:13:53,860
in these institutions still remained.

273
00:13:53,860 --> 00:13:58,210
We haven't started to
dismantle the use of culture

274
00:13:58,210 --> 00:14:02,540
to create the narrative
of cultural whiteness.

275
00:14:02,540 --> 00:14:04,410
So at the heart of anthropology,

276
00:14:04,410 --> 00:14:07,430
and here, I think we could go
to Sylvia Wynter for example,

277
00:14:07,430 --> 00:14:10,760
with her accounts of how in
the middle of the 19th century,

278
00:14:10,760 --> 00:14:13,830
a certain form of liberal humanism,

279
00:14:13,830 --> 00:14:17,420
that came out of a crisis
for whiteness in Europe

280
00:14:17,420 --> 00:14:19,910
that happens after
abolition and emancipation.

281
00:14:19,910 --> 00:14:24,050
Obviously, emancipation in
the British colonies at 1838.

282
00:14:24,050 --> 00:14:29,050
In the 1840s, 1850s, there
is this form of humanism,

283
00:14:29,490 --> 00:14:34,490
form of sort of universalism,
that we've often seen,

284
00:14:34,660 --> 00:14:37,160
anthropology as a positive side

285
00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:39,400
the argument that we're all human.

286
00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:42,400
An argument against the racists

287
00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:45,410
in the natural history
world, that's a celebration

288
00:14:46,500 --> 00:14:49,460
in a space like this of diverse cultures.

289
00:14:49,460 --> 00:14:51,570
But at the heart of the
Pitt Rivers of course,

290
00:14:51,570 --> 00:14:55,050
was also that sense that
that universal model

291
00:14:55,050 --> 00:14:58,510
and the notion of not
the creation of alterity,

292
00:14:58,510 --> 00:15:00,253
but the creation of something else,

293
00:15:00,253 --> 00:15:02,500
the creation of the cultural whiteness,

294
00:15:02,500 --> 00:15:07,080
the sense in which if
you're on the right side

295
00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:11,040
of the glass, in this
institution walking around,

296
00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:14,430
as a living and breathing human being,

297
00:15:14,430 --> 00:15:18,410
you are being racialized culturally,

298
00:15:18,410 --> 00:15:23,410
as a part of a more powerful culture

299
00:15:24,100 --> 00:15:28,060
than those that are
reduced simply to objects.

300
00:15:28,060 --> 00:15:31,400
And in some cases, of course,
to human remains as well.

301
00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:35,110
So the role of a curator,
of course in part

302
00:15:35,110 --> 00:15:37,810
is to keep things the same.

303
00:15:37,810 --> 00:15:40,760
But as the book says, there's
been a sort of mission creep,

304
00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:43,880
that we've seen in these spaces.

305
00:15:43,880 --> 00:15:46,890
So of course, my job
in part is to make sure

306
00:15:46,890 --> 00:15:50,980
that the moths aren't
eating away at the textiles,

307
00:15:50,980 --> 00:15:52,580
and to make sure that the iron work

308
00:15:52,580 --> 00:15:54,510
isn't rusting away.

309
00:15:54,510 --> 00:15:57,320
But that mission creep
has led some to think,

310
00:15:57,320 --> 00:16:00,000
to misunderstand our role in museums

311
00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:03,567
as seeking to stop the world
from changing around us.

312
00:16:03,567 --> 00:16:06,873
And of course, those
changes have happened,

313
00:16:07,830 --> 00:16:12,830
a great deal around Oxford
Museums around all our museums.

314
00:16:13,867 --> 00:16:16,410
And I want to tell you a little bit

315
00:16:16,410 --> 00:16:19,000
about those in the time available to me,

316
00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:21,980
but let me start with the theory

317
00:16:22,890 --> 00:16:25,540
that is represented in the
display of these objects

318
00:16:25,540 --> 00:16:27,170
at the Pitt Rivers 'cause
it goes to the heart

319
00:16:27,170 --> 00:16:28,470
of what we're talking about.

320
00:16:28,470 --> 00:16:30,023
So this is a theoretical Museum

321
00:16:30,023 --> 00:16:33,440
in that it's organized by type,
it's a typological museum.

322
00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:38,440
Each of the cases shows a
different type of object.

323
00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:42,150
And originally, it started in 1850s,

324
00:16:42,150 --> 00:16:46,290
as a personal collection of weapons.

325
00:16:46,290 --> 00:16:48,020
Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers,

326
00:16:48,020 --> 00:16:51,950
after whom the museum
is named, was a soldier,

327
00:16:51,950 --> 00:16:56,950
he was famously charged by
the army to improve the rifle.

328
00:16:57,680 --> 00:17:01,710
And that led to a theory
especially through his experiences

329
00:17:01,710 --> 00:17:04,990
in the conflict in a number of the battles

330
00:17:04,990 --> 00:17:06,580
of the Crimean War,

331
00:17:06,580 --> 00:17:09,660
were the difference
between muskets and rifles,

332
00:17:09,660 --> 00:17:13,640
which is a relatively minor difference

333
00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:15,170
in terms of the military technology

334
00:17:15,170 --> 00:17:19,910
that led to the great
issues of whether empires

335
00:17:19,910 --> 00:17:22,620
are going to fall or succeed.

336
00:17:22,620 --> 00:17:25,850
That led to a wider
theory that he worked out

337
00:17:25,850 --> 00:17:30,370
and wrote about in the 1860s, and 1870s,

338
00:17:30,370 --> 00:17:33,927
which he called "The
Evolution of Culture."

339
00:17:34,958 --> 00:17:36,640
So in 1874, the first year

340
00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:40,093
in which he puts his objects on display,

341
00:17:41,340 --> 00:17:45,610
this was in East London and
what was then the museum

342
00:17:45,610 --> 00:17:49,090
and Bethnal Green, he
then put them on display

343
00:17:49,090 --> 00:17:52,150
in South Kensington in what's now the V&A.

344
00:17:52,150 --> 00:17:54,150
And then they came to Oxford in 1884,

345
00:17:54,150 --> 00:17:59,150
but in 1874 in order to explain
the rationale of his museum,

346
00:17:59,460 --> 00:18:00,840
he presented this diagram,

347
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:04,160
which is a diagram of a series of objects,

348
00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:07,000
all from a single culture
from Aboriginal Australia,

349
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:11,470
all of which he acquired not
in the field, but in London.

350
00:18:11,470 --> 00:18:14,870
He's sort of purchasing
these at auction houses

351
00:18:14,870 --> 00:18:15,943
and from dealers.

352
00:18:17,130 --> 00:18:22,130
Each of these objects in the
middle as a hypothetical stick.

353
00:18:22,370 --> 00:18:26,420
And this is a model of the
evolution of the wooden stick,

354
00:18:26,420 --> 00:18:28,870
if you like, all of the other objects

355
00:18:28,870 --> 00:18:31,930
that are identifiable
objects in the collections

356
00:18:31,930 --> 00:18:34,230
of the Pitt Rivers, which he had no idea

357
00:18:34,230 --> 00:18:36,380
of the relative date of these things,

358
00:18:36,380 --> 00:18:39,330
but he arranged them according
to what he called a series,

359
00:18:39,330 --> 00:18:42,980
a hypothetical series,
what if the boomerang

360
00:18:42,980 --> 00:18:45,950
and the shield and the lumps of the club,

361
00:18:45,950 --> 00:18:49,220
but what if they could be
said in some way to evolve?

362
00:18:49,220 --> 00:18:54,220
What if there was a constant
sense of improving the form,

363
00:18:54,630 --> 00:18:59,380
so that we could build a
theory for material culture

364
00:18:59,380 --> 00:19:02,620
that was about constant improvement

365
00:19:02,620 --> 00:19:05,803
and human difference, of
course being at the heart

366
00:19:08,390 --> 00:19:11,630
of human difference then are
different material histories

367
00:19:11,630 --> 00:19:14,740
rather than different natural histories.

368
00:19:14,740 --> 00:19:17,080
So in some ways, this
is a fairly conventional

369
00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:18,690
Victorian improvement narrative,

370
00:19:18,690 --> 00:19:21,783
but there are two things that
I think should detain us.

371
00:19:22,970 --> 00:19:27,080
One is that this is founded
on a notion of civilization,

372
00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:31,150
and of superiority in relation to culture.

373
00:19:31,150 --> 00:19:34,170
And another is that there's
an inherent violence here

374
00:19:34,170 --> 00:19:35,401
we're talking about weapons.

375
00:19:35,401 --> 00:19:37,200
And of course, he then generalized

376
00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:39,150
the improvement of weapons,

377
00:19:39,150 --> 00:19:42,260
to the improvement of
other forms of objects

378
00:19:42,260 --> 00:19:44,453
and whole cultures of course as well.

379
00:19:46,300 --> 00:19:50,600
That was really brought
home to us in 2015.

380
00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:53,670
With the Rhodes Must Fall Oxford Movement

381
00:19:53,670 --> 00:19:57,040
when they tweeted that
the Pitt Rivers Museum

382
00:19:57,040 --> 00:19:59,240
is one of the most
violent spaces in Oxford.

383
00:19:59,240 --> 00:20:00,920
Now at that point in 2015,

384
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:03,200
I've been here about eight years.

385
00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:04,370
If I think back to 2015,

386
00:20:04,370 --> 00:20:07,010
we were feeling pretty
good about ourselves

387
00:20:07,010 --> 00:20:10,550
as an institution, we
had restituted objects

388
00:20:10,550 --> 00:20:15,550
to First Nations and to
Native American groups.

389
00:20:16,020 --> 00:20:20,090
We had returned ancestral human remains

390
00:20:21,281 --> 00:20:26,080
to communities in the Pacific,
to Australia to New Zealand.

391
00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:30,580
We had hosted visits from the Haida Gwaii.

392
00:20:30,580 --> 00:20:34,440
We'd held a potlatch on
the Anthropology law.

393
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:39,440
We had commissioned the
copies of ancestral objects

394
00:20:40,670 --> 00:20:42,530
to be returned.

395
00:20:42,530 --> 00:20:45,680
Suddenly, an African-led movement

396
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:50,590
said that the very presence
of the museum aspects of it,

397
00:20:50,590 --> 00:20:53,630
every time it opened its doors,
it was enacting violence.

398
00:20:53,630 --> 00:20:55,480
So that for me was a moment

399
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:58,557
in which I had to really
rethink what the museum was,

400
00:20:58,557 --> 00:21:02,440
and in many ways was the start
of thinking for this book.

401
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:07,440
So think back to 2015 and what's
this African led movements,

402
00:21:07,530 --> 00:21:10,000
which of course is part
of the Fallism movements,

403
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:14,197
that has a long history in
Africa, in Algeria in the 1960s,

404
00:21:15,210 --> 00:21:17,960
in other parts of Africa
in the 70s and 80s,

405
00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:22,960
the removal of colonial
statues is not just an artifact

406
00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:26,910
of the Confederacy in the American South,

407
00:21:26,910 --> 00:21:28,080
it's something that's happened

408
00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:30,640
across the continent of Africa as well.

409
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:35,363
And this moment at which
the Fallism movements,

410
00:21:37,991 --> 00:21:42,720
entered a new phase really
was a generational shift.

411
00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:46,450
So in 2015, students who were born

412
00:21:46,450 --> 00:21:49,083
after the end of apartheid,
which was ended in 1994,

413
00:21:49,930 --> 00:21:52,540
who are 18 or 19 years old,

414
00:21:52,540 --> 00:21:55,820
still experienced institutional racism,

415
00:21:55,820 --> 00:21:58,850
still experienced everyday racism,

416
00:21:58,850 --> 00:22:02,470
and anti-black violence at UCT,

417
00:22:02,470 --> 00:22:06,153
the heart of that university,

418
00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:10,180
on land supposedly handed over by him,

419
00:22:10,180 --> 00:22:12,000
although his rights of ownership

420
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:16,350
are another set of questions,
was an image of Cecil Rhodes,

421
00:22:16,350 --> 00:22:20,753
the diamond miner, the colonialist,

422
00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:24,530
the architect arguably of what turned

423
00:22:24,530 --> 00:22:27,753
into the system of apartheid.

424
00:22:29,410 --> 00:22:32,610
The mass murderer, the
corporate colonizer,

425
00:22:32,610 --> 00:22:34,900
whose South Africa company,

426
00:22:34,900 --> 00:22:36,900
was part of this reemergence

427
00:22:36,900 --> 00:22:39,220
of the corporate model of colonialism

428
00:22:39,220 --> 00:22:42,710
that happened in the late 19th century.

429
00:22:42,710 --> 00:22:44,770
So the removal of Cecil John Rhodes

430
00:22:44,770 --> 00:22:46,560
from the heart of the campus

431
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:51,510
became not just a symbolism
issue, but a recognition

432
00:22:51,510 --> 00:22:54,630
that the symbolism of
this image was designed

433
00:22:54,630 --> 00:22:58,120
to do violence over time, to naturalize,

434
00:22:58,120 --> 00:23:03,120
to normalize his worldview,
for years to come.

435
00:23:03,360 --> 00:23:04,720
So the use of arts and culture

436
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:09,530
to make a colonialist
vision last was one thing,

437
00:23:09,530 --> 00:23:14,240
then in the fall of 2015,
because of the Rhodes Trust,

438
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:17,430
which is an immensely rich organization

439
00:23:17,430 --> 00:23:22,310
that uses a bequest from
him to sponsor students

440
00:23:22,310 --> 00:23:23,450
from around the world.

441
00:23:23,450 --> 00:23:26,470
South African colleagues
and Zimbabwean colleagues

442
00:23:26,470 --> 00:23:27,530
found themselves in Oxford

443
00:23:27,530 --> 00:23:31,020
having been part of the
Rhodes Must Fall Movement

444
00:23:31,020 --> 00:23:35,170
in South Africa, and
found another image of him

445
00:23:35,170 --> 00:23:36,950
on the front of Oriel College,

446
00:23:36,950 --> 00:23:38,630
which of course, to our great shame

447
00:23:38,630 --> 00:23:41,590
continues to be there today.

448
00:23:41,590 --> 00:23:45,200
And that student movement pointed out

449
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:49,160
the many, many different ways and sites

450
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:51,630
at which the vision of empire

451
00:23:51,630 --> 00:23:54,510
whether it was the naming
of the Codrington Library,

452
00:23:54,510 --> 00:23:56,073
which has since been unnamed.

453
00:23:57,249 --> 00:24:01,100
And also a college named
after a Caribbean slaver

454
00:24:01,100 --> 00:24:04,140
who gave some money to the
college in the 18th century,

455
00:24:04,140 --> 00:24:06,130
whether that was the physical architecture

456
00:24:06,130 --> 00:24:08,030
of the old Indian Institutes,

457
00:24:08,030 --> 00:24:10,610
whether that of course,
was Rhodes House itself,

458
00:24:10,610 --> 00:24:12,660
or whether it was the Pitt Rivers Museum.

459
00:24:13,530 --> 00:24:18,530
These were institutions in
which a worldview of colonialism

460
00:24:18,860 --> 00:24:23,860
was continually in the
present memorialized

461
00:24:23,990 --> 00:24:27,680
and thereby celebrated
and thereby naturalized

462
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:31,113
and thereby hurt was being
caused in the present.

463
00:24:32,020 --> 00:24:34,870
But at the heart of the campaigners'

464
00:24:34,870 --> 00:24:37,790
vision was not the upper
gallery of the Pitt Rivers,

465
00:24:37,790 --> 00:24:42,790
where the weapons such
as the ones I showed you

466
00:24:43,860 --> 00:24:45,526
were being displayed.

467
00:24:45,526 --> 00:24:50,526
It was the accusation that
the display of looted art,

468
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:53,550
which had been legally purchased

469
00:24:53,550 --> 00:24:57,110
by or actually given to
the museum over the years

470
00:24:57,110 --> 00:24:57,943
by numerous different donors.

471
00:24:57,943 --> 00:25:00,302
That was where the violence was,

472
00:25:02,230 --> 00:25:04,800
that was what was causing hurt

473
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,870
to African visitors if they came in,

474
00:25:07,870 --> 00:25:10,247
to many visitors in our
diverse community in Oxford

475
00:25:10,247 --> 00:25:13,470
and to those many people who
are part of the communities

476
00:25:13,470 --> 00:25:15,280
that we claim that we serve,

477
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:17,040
who would never even
walk into this building,

478
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:20,173
because they know what it is,
they know what it represents.

479
00:25:21,830 --> 00:25:26,380
So as someone who deeply
believes in the fact

480
00:25:26,380 --> 00:25:31,060
that we need something like
a world culture Museum,

481
00:25:31,060 --> 00:25:33,260
more now than ever in the present

482
00:25:33,260 --> 00:25:37,410
to spaces to celebrate and to learn about,

483
00:25:37,410 --> 00:25:41,940
and to explore different
ways of thinking and seeing

484
00:25:41,940 --> 00:25:44,653
and making and creating and imagining.

485
00:25:46,958 --> 00:25:49,714
It was a sudden realization
that that aspiration,

486
00:25:49,714 --> 00:25:53,190
that mission for an institution
like the Pitt Rivers

487
00:25:53,190 --> 00:25:57,840
was being hamstrung and
was being hypocritical,

488
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:01,370
made hypocritical by the
display of looted African art,

489
00:26:01,370 --> 00:26:03,593
when the demands were being returned.

490
00:26:05,896 --> 00:26:09,570
When returns were being demanded.

491
00:26:09,570 --> 00:26:12,050
So the case of the Benin 1897 expedition

492
00:26:12,050 --> 00:26:15,010
is, I guess the most high profile,

493
00:26:15,010 --> 00:26:18,660
the most iconic of those incidents

494
00:26:18,660 --> 00:26:22,140
that happened in this key period of time

495
00:26:22,140 --> 00:26:25,670
between the 1880s and
the early 20th century.

496
00:26:25,670 --> 00:26:28,320
This return of the corporate colonialism

497
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,550
that we saw with the Royal Africa Company

498
00:26:30,550 --> 00:26:32,190
in the 17th century that kicked off

499
00:26:32,190 --> 00:26:34,320
the transatlantic slave trade,

500
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:36,140
that we saw with the East India Company

501
00:26:36,140 --> 00:26:38,730
with all the violence that
happened across Asia, and so on.

502
00:26:38,730 --> 00:26:41,973
That, of course, by this
point was long defunct,

503
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:45,680
but further companies like Cecil Rhodes'

504
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,350
South Africa Company, like an equivalent,

505
00:26:49,350 --> 00:26:51,900
actually to that body in East Africa,

506
00:26:51,900 --> 00:26:53,010
and then in West Africa,

507
00:26:53,010 --> 00:26:55,730
in the form of the Royal Niger Company,

508
00:26:55,730 --> 00:26:58,150
this corporate colonialism.

509
00:26:58,150 --> 00:27:00,910
So this isn't settler colonialism,

510
00:27:00,910 --> 00:27:05,910
This is ultraviolent militarist
extractivist colonialism,

511
00:27:06,270 --> 00:27:09,780
came together with the
model of the protectorate.

512
00:27:09,780 --> 00:27:12,880
So the story of the Benin expedition,

513
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:14,530
is actually not about the colonies,

514
00:27:14,530 --> 00:27:16,760
it's about these edges of empire,

515
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:19,750
the notions of the protectorate,
the notions of the company.

516
00:27:19,750 --> 00:27:21,650
So the military activity of the company

517
00:27:21,650 --> 00:27:23,790
in the North of Nigeria,

518
00:27:23,790 --> 00:27:27,131
or what soon would be the Northern Nigeria

519
00:27:27,131 --> 00:27:30,660
the northern parts, the upper reaches

520
00:27:30,660 --> 00:27:35,390
of the Niger River and
then the military attack,

521
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:41,880
overseen by the
protectorates in their areas

522
00:27:42,060 --> 00:27:45,440
along the Niger coast, within
which was the Benin kingdom,

523
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:46,670
which of course, had been working

524
00:27:46,670 --> 00:27:48,370
with the British over centuries

525
00:27:48,370 --> 00:27:50,520
with the Portuguese before that.

526
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:55,520
This was a vast, significant
urban civilization,

527
00:27:56,150 --> 00:28:00,080
urban society with an
unbroken line of kings of Obas

528
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,260
that reaches back
earlier than Elizabeth I.

529
00:28:04,360 --> 00:28:07,260
Within which, as part of the
religious life of the court,

530
00:28:07,260 --> 00:28:10,400
as part of the royal ritual of the court,

531
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:14,580
there was this unique artistic tradition

532
00:28:14,580 --> 00:28:18,410
in this attack, which
was about a land grab,

533
00:28:18,410 --> 00:28:23,260
to set up the rubber industry,
and the palm oil industry.

534
00:28:23,260 --> 00:28:26,950
So this is the banal reality

535
00:28:26,950 --> 00:28:29,060
of this is, this is about rubber tires,

536
00:28:29,060 --> 00:28:30,890
it's about margarine.

537
00:28:30,890 --> 00:28:35,890
It's about lubricants for
the factories in Manchester.

538
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:44,120
They are being, this attack is going on,

539
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,980
and the removal of the
Oba, the dispossession

540
00:28:47,980 --> 00:28:50,570
of many, many kings and chiefs,

541
00:28:50,570 --> 00:28:55,570
of whom this was the most
iconic, it was the largest scale.

542
00:28:55,730 --> 00:28:58,960
In that process, more than
10,000 objects were looted.

543
00:28:58,960 --> 00:28:59,793
Now, we're all aware,

544
00:28:59,793 --> 00:29:02,410
of course of the more than 1200 plaques,

545
00:29:02,410 --> 00:29:07,410
maybe the most iconic of
those objects that were taken.

546
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:12,520
And so the relief plaques
that tell the story

547
00:29:12,820 --> 00:29:17,440
and this unique iconography of the history

548
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:21,470
of the royal courts, the
achievements and interactions

549
00:29:21,470 --> 00:29:24,320
of each of the Obas, and
here on the left-hand side

550
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,180
is the famous display
of some of those plaques

551
00:29:27,180 --> 00:29:28,890
at the British Museum.

552
00:29:28,890 --> 00:29:30,340
But on the right-hand
side here is our case

553
00:29:30,340 --> 00:29:32,630
that reminds us of how many other objects

554
00:29:32,630 --> 00:29:36,190
more than 9000 other objects
that were taken at that time

555
00:29:36,190 --> 00:29:38,792
that includes the Benin
heads, the Heads of Obas

556
00:29:38,792 --> 00:29:40,060
that we see in the middle,

557
00:29:40,060 --> 00:29:41,530
which have a little hole in the top

558
00:29:41,530 --> 00:29:45,380
into which a individually
carved ivory Tusk,

559
00:29:45,380 --> 00:29:47,503
such as we see at the bottom
and a detail on the right

560
00:29:47,503 --> 00:29:49,560
with this very unique iconography.

561
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:51,520
This again tells the
history of the achievements

562
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:55,420
of each Oba and their lives.

563
00:29:55,420 --> 00:29:58,870
There are those that are
the figures in bronze

564
00:29:58,870 --> 00:30:02,600
such as the Hornblower, the top left

565
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:04,490
and the leopard in the top right.

566
00:30:04,490 --> 00:30:08,743
There were the iconic hip
ornament masks made of ivory,

567
00:30:11,195 --> 00:30:12,510
such as we see on the left-hand side

568
00:30:12,510 --> 00:30:16,260
that depict the Queen Mother Idia,

569
00:30:16,260 --> 00:30:20,480
and a host of other items of coral work,

570
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,600
wood of ivory and so on.

571
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,500
Here's a rare photograph
of one of those altars

572
00:30:27,500 --> 00:30:30,710
because this attack was a hyper modern

573
00:30:30,710 --> 00:30:34,860
attack with many of the technologies

574
00:30:34,860 --> 00:30:38,410
that would find their
way to the soil of Europe

575
00:30:38,410 --> 00:30:41,430
in the 20th century, that
were being experimented

576
00:30:41,430 --> 00:30:45,620
with on African bodies in the 1890s.

577
00:30:45,620 --> 00:30:48,743
1884, was the founding of
the Pitt Rivers Museum,

578
00:30:49,915 --> 00:30:52,960
it was the year in which they
carved up Africa in Berlin,

579
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:55,410
it was also the year of
the invention of the Maxim,

580
00:30:55,410 --> 00:30:57,853
which is the machine gun, so important,

581
00:30:58,750 --> 00:31:02,660
alongside rocket launchers,
alongside the mountain guns,

582
00:31:02,660 --> 00:31:07,660
alongside electric lighting,
alongside barbed wire

583
00:31:08,500 --> 00:31:10,740
that was being used in this attack

584
00:31:11,950 --> 00:31:16,870
against the civilization of city,

585
00:31:16,870 --> 00:31:20,810
who were armed with 17th century muskets,

586
00:31:20,810 --> 00:31:25,330
and were armed with their cannon,
and their bows and arrows.

587
00:31:25,330 --> 00:31:27,680
Think back now to the diagram

588
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:32,417
that the General Augustus
Rivers drew in 1874.

589
00:31:32,417 --> 00:31:37,417
And think about what that history
of the military technology

590
00:31:37,540 --> 00:31:40,160
found itself doing in the desecration

591
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:41,490
of these religious sites,

592
00:31:41,490 --> 00:31:43,120
in the destruction of the locals

593
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:46,460
in so many villages around
such a massive area,

594
00:31:46,460 --> 00:31:48,740
so many of the civilians that were killed.

595
00:31:48,740 --> 00:31:53,740
So many the 3 million
of the dumdum bullets,

596
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:58,990
which were filed down
and shot into the bush

597
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,590
as they attacked the
sheer loss and of course,

598
00:32:02,590 --> 00:32:04,320
as the book says, The Hague Convention,

599
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:06,910
the first Hague Convention of 1899

600
00:32:06,910 --> 00:32:09,943
arguably was a direct
response to this atrocity.

601
00:32:11,357 --> 00:32:13,810
Because it outlawed so many
things that were done here,

602
00:32:13,810 --> 00:32:16,490
including the desecration
of religious sites,

603
00:32:16,490 --> 00:32:21,490
including the willful killing
randomly of civilians,

604
00:32:22,020 --> 00:32:24,750
but also the looting of artworks as well,

605
00:32:24,750 --> 00:32:27,570
because what I hope to convince you of,

606
00:32:27,570 --> 00:32:29,340
as we move towards the end of this talk

607
00:32:29,340 --> 00:32:34,340
is that looting was not a
side effect of this attack.

608
00:32:34,490 --> 00:32:38,630
It was a central military strategy.

609
00:32:38,630 --> 00:32:41,580
This is about the taking of sovereignty.

610
00:32:41,580 --> 00:32:45,060
It's about the destruction
of traditional religion.

611
00:32:45,060 --> 00:32:47,840
And it's about an enduring attempt

612
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,690
at a cultural dispossession.

613
00:32:50,690 --> 00:32:53,400
So these are photographs from
the Pitt Rivers collection,

614
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:55,330
the one that's most familiar to people

615
00:32:55,330 --> 00:32:58,480
that know about this history
the one on the right-hand side,

616
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,920
with the loot laid out in
front of these figures,

617
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,280
less well known are the photographs

618
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:08,793
that show how they burned
the place to the ground.

619
00:33:10,070 --> 00:33:13,500
So the restitution movement,
like the Fallism Movement

620
00:33:13,500 --> 00:33:16,420
is a long standing African led movement.

621
00:33:16,420 --> 00:33:18,970
The first returns were
made to Oba Akenzua II

622
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:21,970
as early as 1938.

623
00:33:21,970 --> 00:33:26,530
And here he is actually receiving
the two coral work crowns

624
00:33:26,530 --> 00:33:30,380
and the coral work robe
in a return overseen

625
00:33:30,380 --> 00:33:33,720
actually from London by the British.

626
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,430
With a 100 year anniversary in 1997,

627
00:33:36,430 --> 00:33:40,400
a major campaign war, which
was a Nigerian led campaign

628
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,850
with support here in the UK from some MPs

629
00:33:43,850 --> 00:33:46,750
include Bernie Grant, who we see here,

630
00:33:46,750 --> 00:33:49,370
there was what was seen as
an unsuccessful campaign

631
00:33:49,370 --> 00:33:50,627
to see the return of the Benin bronzes.

632
00:33:50,627 --> 00:33:54,580
And in the wake of those arguments,

633
00:33:54,580 --> 00:33:58,530
the statements of the
universal value museums

634
00:33:58,530 --> 00:34:01,910
that came out in 2002,
was really an attempt

635
00:34:01,910 --> 00:34:05,840
to put a sticking plaster
onto the sets of questions.

636
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,750
As we approach the 125th
anniversary next year,

637
00:34:09,750 --> 00:34:11,250
we're in a very different time.

638
00:34:11,250 --> 00:34:14,810
And the tone now is not so much anger,

639
00:34:14,810 --> 00:34:19,810
as about diplomacy, about
remembrance, about restitution

640
00:34:22,500 --> 00:34:27,500
as a way of facing up to these
histories that we Europeans

641
00:34:27,780 --> 00:34:29,670
have shut our eyes to,

642
00:34:29,670 --> 00:34:31,900
not only in terms of the military history,

643
00:34:31,900 --> 00:34:36,330
but the role of our
museums in creating myths

644
00:34:36,330 --> 00:34:37,973
of white cultural supremacy.

645
00:34:39,020 --> 00:34:41,940
So I don't have time now to
tell you about all the words

646
00:34:41,940 --> 00:34:44,690
I made up in the writing of this book.

647
00:34:44,690 --> 00:34:49,170
But I did find so many
of the basic vocabularies

648
00:34:49,170 --> 00:34:52,560
available to me, from art
history, from anthropology,

649
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:57,560
from archaeology, from
architecture, wherever you look,

650
00:34:58,510 --> 00:35:00,543
I found them lacking.

651
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,010
In order to give you one example,

652
00:35:03,010 --> 00:35:07,500
the notion in the field of
material culture studies,

653
00:35:07,500 --> 00:35:10,270
there's no idea more
familiar to us than the idea

654
00:35:10,270 --> 00:35:12,610
of the life history of the object.

655
00:35:12,610 --> 00:35:15,710
The social life of things,
the cultural biography

656
00:35:16,950 --> 00:35:18,970
of an item that moves from A to B

657
00:35:18,970 --> 00:35:21,250
and it's constantly re-contextualized,

658
00:35:21,250 --> 00:35:24,990
is constantly there's
another meaning added to it.

659
00:35:24,990 --> 00:35:26,880
That notion of the social life of things

660
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:31,880
felt completely inappropriate
when the taking of an item

661
00:35:33,700 --> 00:35:35,750
was about destruction and loss.

662
00:35:35,750 --> 00:35:38,020
So there I used as Achille Mbembe's

663
00:35:38,020 --> 00:35:39,680
critique of Foucault,

664
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:43,023
where he takes the
bio-political and remodels it,

665
00:35:44,826 --> 00:35:47,330
in the world we live in
now as the necropolitical

666
00:35:47,330 --> 00:35:49,530
where he says that okay Foucault

667
00:35:49,530 --> 00:35:52,000
might have found it useful
to talk about the way

668
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:55,770
in which life has a
politics in institutions

669
00:35:55,770 --> 00:35:57,840
like hospitals or prisons.

670
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:02,840
But in the modern world,
we're at the boundaries

671
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:07,537
of Fortress Europe, so many
displaced people from Africa

672
00:36:07,537 --> 00:36:10,570
and the Middle East are
losing their lives every year,

673
00:36:10,570 --> 00:36:13,370
as they drown in the Mediterranean,

674
00:36:13,370 --> 00:36:17,980
as we seek to hold the
boundaries of Fortress Europe,

675
00:36:17,980 --> 00:36:19,290
we need another category,

676
00:36:19,290 --> 00:36:21,810
we need what he calls the necropolitical.

677
00:36:21,810 --> 00:36:25,210
So inspired by Mbembe, the
notion of the necrographic

678
00:36:25,210 --> 00:36:28,760
is an attempt to talk about
the biographies of objects

679
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:31,220
that are actually about loss and death.

680
00:36:31,220 --> 00:36:34,520
So we can talk about some of
those other ideas in the Q&A.

681
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:39,020
But just to finish, what
does this mean for us?

682
00:36:39,020 --> 00:36:42,600
What does all of this
reckoning we're having

683
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,510
with the history of museums,
with the role of museums

684
00:36:45,510 --> 00:36:49,690
in the ongoing propaganda,

685
00:36:49,690 --> 00:36:51,640
not just of notions of the primitive,

686
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:54,330
but notions of the civilized.

687
00:36:54,330 --> 00:36:57,510
How do we, if we see these as institutions

688
00:36:57,510 --> 00:37:00,420
of cultural whiteness, if we recognize

689
00:37:00,420 --> 00:37:05,253
the work of abolition, the work
of emancipation is not over.

690
00:37:06,410 --> 00:37:07,250
Then what do we do?

691
00:37:07,250 --> 00:37:10,050
Now my colleague, Nick Mirzoeff's book

692
00:37:10,050 --> 00:37:13,440
was incredibly important
for me in writing my book,

693
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:15,900
and you can download his texts,

694
00:37:15,900 --> 00:37:19,730
which he calls the appearance
of Black Lives Matter online,

695
00:37:19,730 --> 00:37:22,937
you just Google it, and
he wrote this in 2017

696
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:25,090
long before what some people

697
00:37:25,090 --> 00:37:28,570
have called the BLM moments of 2020.

698
00:37:28,570 --> 00:37:32,850
It's very important for
us to see these movements

699
00:37:32,850 --> 00:37:34,053
in the long term.

700
00:37:34,970 --> 00:37:37,190
Restitution wasn't just
thought up last year,

701
00:37:37,190 --> 00:37:38,980
nor was anti-racism, right?

702
00:37:38,980 --> 00:37:42,140
And in many ways, I mean, we
can talk again in the Q&A,

703
00:37:42,140 --> 00:37:44,300
maybe about the sense that
the Civil Rights Movement

704
00:37:44,300 --> 00:37:48,200
of the 1960s and 70s was
largely a recognition

705
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:50,870
that racism isn't some human universal,

706
00:37:50,870 --> 00:37:52,820
it's something that has a history.

707
00:37:52,820 --> 00:37:55,890
And that history that came
to view in the 60s, 70s

708
00:37:55,890 --> 00:37:58,310
was the history of enslavement.

709
00:37:58,310 --> 00:38:01,710
In the present moment, we're
having another reckoning

710
00:38:01,710 --> 00:38:03,140
with the history of racism.

711
00:38:03,140 --> 00:38:04,990
We're reckoning again
with the fact that racism

712
00:38:04,990 --> 00:38:06,250
doesn't just come from nowhere,

713
00:38:06,250 --> 00:38:07,510
that racism has a history.

714
00:38:07,510 --> 00:38:11,490
But that history also involves

715
00:38:11,490 --> 00:38:14,990
more recent forms of anti-black violence.

716
00:38:14,990 --> 00:38:19,990
What Nick argues in his
book, which is so simple,

717
00:38:20,130 --> 00:38:22,730
but so devastating as an observation,

718
00:38:22,730 --> 00:38:26,170
writing in the context of the
racist murders of Eric Garner,

719
00:38:26,170 --> 00:38:29,930
and the racist murder of Michael Brown,

720
00:38:29,930 --> 00:38:34,930
writing about the timeframe from 2014,

721
00:38:35,020 --> 00:38:37,603
up to the Trump inauguration of 2017.

722
00:38:38,470 --> 00:38:40,597
He makes this observation he says,

723
00:38:40,597 --> 00:38:44,260
"It was a shift in the
visual regime of our society

724
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,120
that meant that suddenly dashcam footage

725
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:52,700
and cell phone footage, the technologies

726
00:38:52,700 --> 00:38:57,000
of seeing made visible
anti-black violence,

727
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,140
that has been happening for centuries,

728
00:38:59,140 --> 00:39:01,950
and made those images shareable,

729
00:39:01,950 --> 00:39:06,360
and helped to shape a politics
of anti-racism in a new way."

730
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:10,020
What does that mean for us
in our context of museums?

731
00:39:10,020 --> 00:39:12,860
Well, I would add to
Nick's important argument,

732
00:39:12,860 --> 00:39:15,460
the words of the Minnesota
Attorney General,

733
00:39:15,460 --> 00:39:20,460
speaking in April this
year, after the verdict

734
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:25,800
following the racist
murder of George Floyd,

735
00:39:26,230 --> 00:39:28,920
who said, "I would not call
today's verdict justice,

736
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:31,770
because justice implies true restoration,

737
00:39:31,770 --> 00:39:33,463
but it is accountability.

738
00:39:34,530 --> 00:39:39,050
And accountability is the first
step towards that justice."

739
00:39:39,050 --> 00:39:40,290
What does that mean for museums?

740
00:39:40,290 --> 00:39:44,940
Well, in the book, I argue
that this work, as I say,

741
00:39:44,940 --> 00:39:48,490
which I don't, in a European context,

742
00:39:48,490 --> 00:39:52,200
where the de-colonial has
a set of different nuances.

743
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:53,830
I noticed we didn't have
a land acknowledgement

744
00:39:53,830 --> 00:39:55,440
at the start of this talk.

745
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:56,970
We don't have land acknowledgments

746
00:39:56,970 --> 00:39:59,490
when we talk about the Pitt Rivers either

747
00:39:59,490 --> 00:40:01,880
because we're not on stolen lands,

748
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:06,260
but were full of stolen
art and stolen culture.

749
00:40:06,260 --> 00:40:11,080
So simply to list where
are all these items?

750
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:15,340
This work of as I say, what
I don't call de-colonial,

751
00:40:15,340 --> 00:40:18,399
but anti-colonial, anti-racist
work in the museum.

752
00:40:18,399 --> 00:40:22,700
It starts with the very
boring conventional work

753
00:40:22,700 --> 00:40:26,403
of a curator to say, here's a list,

754
00:40:27,340 --> 00:40:31,810
to name to say the names of the museums

755
00:40:31,810 --> 00:40:33,470
that hold the Benin bronzes,

756
00:40:33,470 --> 00:40:35,687
and to begin a conversation
in each of them.

757
00:40:35,687 --> 00:40:40,687
And that in the past year
because of the renewed Nigerian

758
00:40:40,860 --> 00:40:44,510
led campaigns for returns,
has started to happen.

759
00:40:44,510 --> 00:40:47,220
And we as our institutions,
we are exactly as we saw

760
00:40:47,220 --> 00:40:49,870
with the Washington
principles in the 1990s,

761
00:40:49,870 --> 00:40:53,360
in a very different
historical circumstances

762
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:58,360
of coming to terms with the
Nazi loot in our museums.

763
00:40:59,720 --> 00:41:03,520
So in this moment, the
owners of responsibility

764
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,633
for knowing what is stolen,

765
00:41:06,510 --> 00:41:08,890
for being transparent about
not just what's on display,

766
00:41:08,890 --> 00:41:12,770
but what's in the storerooms
lies not with the claimant,

767
00:41:12,770 --> 00:41:15,090
but with the institution.

768
00:41:15,090 --> 00:41:17,390
We want, I want to imagine a world

769
00:41:17,390 --> 00:41:21,200
in which World Culture museums exist,

770
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,360
in which nothing is stolen.

771
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:29,200
Here in the UK, that
conversation is being run.

772
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,440
That argument is being
run even to the point

773
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:33,520
where when Aberdeen announced

774
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,860
that they will be returning
their Benin bronze.

775
00:41:36,860 --> 00:41:40,053
The Times editorial and
The Times of London,

776
00:41:40,940 --> 00:41:42,560
shifted their editorial line

777
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:43,890
and said that they are in support.

778
00:41:43,890 --> 00:41:48,300
And that shows I think when
the right wing are happy

779
00:41:48,300 --> 00:41:51,270
to go along with this,
as well, as arguments

780
00:41:51,270 --> 00:41:53,700
that in the past have come from the left,

781
00:41:53,700 --> 00:41:56,123
we can see that this is
a wider cultural moment.

782
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:58,370
So I'm gonna stop there.

783
00:41:58,370 --> 00:42:03,300
So quarter to, so we have
time in the time available

784
00:42:03,300 --> 00:42:08,300
to us actually to have conversations.

785
00:42:08,670 --> 00:42:10,523
But let's just remember last week,

786
00:42:11,510 --> 00:42:15,410
was a landmark week for this struggle.

787
00:42:15,410 --> 00:42:19,263
My colleague in Berlin,
who was speaking in Paris,

788
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:24,230
at exactly a week ago
actually, Benedicte Savoy,

789
00:42:24,230 --> 00:42:29,100
said at the Musee de Quay
Branly at the ceremony

790
00:42:29,100 --> 00:42:31,070
for the return of the Benin objects,

791
00:42:31,070 --> 00:42:33,470
which were looted in a very similar way

792
00:42:33,470 --> 00:42:37,240
from Abomey in 1892 by the French,

793
00:42:37,240 --> 00:42:38,760
those objects are going back,

794
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:41,100
the ceremony was being
held on the same day

795
00:42:41,100 --> 00:42:43,440
as the ceremony at the
University of Cambridge.

796
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:46,870
And the day after that Aberdeen
returned theirs as well.

797
00:42:46,870 --> 00:42:51,870
She said that this is a moment
of comparable importance

798
00:42:52,330 --> 00:42:55,370
for museums as the
falling of the Berlin Wall

799
00:42:55,370 --> 00:42:57,880
was for the projects of Europe.

800
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:01,960
And I think that isn't hyperbole.

801
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:03,850
That's how it feels.

802
00:43:03,850 --> 00:43:05,650
We need to get this right.

803
00:43:05,650 --> 00:43:10,550
We need to evolve our
ethical practices in museums,

804
00:43:10,550 --> 00:43:12,200
far more than we had.

805
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:14,060
We've always been doing that.

806
00:43:14,060 --> 00:43:15,490
This is business as usual.

807
00:43:15,490 --> 00:43:19,300
If our business as usual,
is being open to change.

808
00:43:19,300 --> 00:43:20,600
Okay, thank you very much.

809
00:43:33,310 --> 00:43:34,544
Okay, so I think you're on mute.

810
00:43:34,544 --> 00:43:36,680
Are you're on mute?

811
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:41,680
- I have a question, can you hear me?

812
00:43:42,896 --> 00:43:43,996
- I think I'm still...

813
00:43:45,100 --> 00:43:47,620
Great, thank you so much, Professor Hicks

814
00:43:48,540 --> 00:43:51,340
for your thoughts and it looks
like we have (inaudible).

815
00:43:59,470 --> 00:44:02,320
- I'm so sorry, I can't hear
you now I've lost you again.

816
00:44:07,843 --> 00:44:10,130
- Is muted, okay.

817
00:44:10,130 --> 00:44:13,910
- Sorry, if you do have questions

818
00:44:13,910 --> 00:44:15,070
please put them in the chat,

819
00:44:15,070 --> 00:44:20,070
but I will call on, is it
David Nalin who has a question?

820
00:44:21,610 --> 00:44:22,672
Please go ahead.

821
00:44:22,672 --> 00:44:25,240
- Yes, can you hear me?

822
00:44:25,240 --> 00:44:26,073
- Yes.

823
00:44:26,073 --> 00:44:28,380
- Yes, my question was regarding

824
00:44:28,380 --> 00:44:33,380
that late 19th century
photograph of what appeared to me

825
00:44:35,580 --> 00:44:40,580
to be some of the bronze or brass heads

826
00:44:43,430 --> 00:44:47,120
and in the background, carved tusks.

827
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,080
But my question is it
looked in the photograph,

828
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:53,220
as if some of the bronze or brass heads

829
00:44:53,220 --> 00:44:56,860
were being used as the
bases to support the tusks.

830
00:44:56,860 --> 00:44:59,570
Is that true or is just an artifact

831
00:44:59,570 --> 00:45:01,370
of the way the photograph was taken?

832
00:45:08,270 --> 00:45:09,250
- Okay, thank you so much.

833
00:45:09,250 --> 00:45:11,510
Yeah, I'm just trying to share my screen

834
00:45:11,510 --> 00:45:13,630
so we can look at that image again.

835
00:45:13,630 --> 00:45:14,980
So you're absolutely right.

836
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:17,720
Hopefully you can see that.

837
00:45:17,720 --> 00:45:20,290
Yep, so that's the image
you're talking about.

838
00:45:20,290 --> 00:45:21,350
- Yeah.

839
00:45:21,350 --> 00:45:23,410
- So that's an 1891 photograph

840
00:45:23,410 --> 00:45:28,060
by one of the very few Europeans,

841
00:45:28,060 --> 00:45:31,220
who was ever granted
entry to the royal court.

842
00:45:31,220 --> 00:45:33,530
These items were virtually unknown,

843
00:45:33,530 --> 00:45:36,750
and that's why they were a
part of their fame at the time,

844
00:45:36,750 --> 00:45:40,180
but how they became iconic
was this artistic tradition,

845
00:45:40,180 --> 00:45:43,280
because it was so sacred,
was entirely unknown.

846
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:44,630
So you're absolutely right,

847
00:45:45,902 --> 00:45:49,950
so heads of the Obas
have holes in the top,

848
00:45:49,950 --> 00:45:54,280
which were designed to
support their matching task.

849
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:58,680
And the iconography of
the task tells the story

850
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,400
of the achievements of that Oba.

851
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:04,310
So in the front, you've
got a line of bells.

852
00:46:04,310 --> 00:46:07,593
And then you have a series
of the bronze figures.

853
00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:13,600
There's a ceremonial axe,
that is laid up there as well,

854
00:46:17,420 --> 00:46:22,420
and it's sitting on an altar in the...

855
00:46:25,170 --> 00:46:26,840
So that's in one of the royal complexes.

856
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:31,760
So you have to imagine
this vast sacred site

857
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:35,787
which in parts was not
exactly a mausoleum,

858
00:46:35,787 --> 00:46:38,130
but each of the palaces
of each of the Obas

859
00:46:38,970 --> 00:46:41,340
was abandoned after their reign,

860
00:46:41,340 --> 00:46:43,090
but continued to be venerated

861
00:46:43,090 --> 00:46:48,090
became a site for the
veneration and to worship

862
00:46:49,730 --> 00:46:54,730
that went with that Oba, with
the Queen Mother's house,

863
00:46:56,540 --> 00:46:58,090
and so forth.

864
00:46:58,090 --> 00:47:02,380
So this is a landscape, which
of course, I mean the British

865
00:47:02,380 --> 00:47:05,973
described in some ways, as
it was all falling apart,

866
00:47:08,340 --> 00:47:10,231
things were covered in dust.

867
00:47:10,231 --> 00:47:14,457
That was the point, it was a
city filled with these sacred,

868
00:47:21,240 --> 00:47:25,840
ongoing spaces, where the altars
were incredibly important,

869
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:30,150
as ways to venerate the ongoing
presence of the ancestors.

870
00:47:30,150 --> 00:47:30,983
- Thank you.

871
00:47:39,073 --> 00:47:43,220
- Okay, there's actually a
few questions in the chat

872
00:47:43,220 --> 00:47:48,130
that I'm going to ask in
relationship to each other.

873
00:47:48,130 --> 00:47:49,890
But there are a set of questions

874
00:47:49,890 --> 00:47:53,080
that are asking about
what happens to museums,

875
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:55,030
if they give all the objects back?

876
00:47:55,030 --> 00:47:56,920
Will museums give the objects back

877
00:47:56,920 --> 00:47:59,920
given that so much of their revenue

878
00:47:59,920 --> 00:48:01,700
and their very means of existence

879
00:48:01,700 --> 00:48:03,840
depends on the display of objects?

880
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:08,840
And what happens when
museums only have objects

881
00:48:11,870 --> 00:48:13,640
from local cultures?

882
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:17,010
Is there a possibility
for what the questioner

883
00:48:17,010 --> 00:48:20,193
is describing as a
multicultural, worldly museum?

884
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,780
So I think that's a
related set of questions

885
00:48:23,780 --> 00:48:26,740
about will they give them back?

886
00:48:26,740 --> 00:48:28,770
And then what happens to the museum

887
00:48:30,570 --> 00:48:33,230
once the objects are given back?

888
00:48:33,230 --> 00:48:34,990
- Sure absolutely thank you.

889
00:48:34,990 --> 00:48:37,760
So yeah, I mean first off, let's remember,

890
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:41,400
restitution is already a
normal part of our job, right?

891
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:44,280
When it comes to
restitution in the context

892
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:48,050
of Holocaust spoliation.

893
00:48:48,050 --> 00:48:50,590
When it comes to the
question of the return

894
00:48:50,590 --> 00:48:53,893
of ancestral human remains,
this is just what we do.

895
00:48:55,010 --> 00:48:56,710
I'm old enough to remember,

896
00:48:56,710 --> 00:49:00,650
in the 90s, in the 80s,
the same arguments,

897
00:49:00,650 --> 00:49:02,970
the same questions, the
same perfectly reasonable

898
00:49:02,970 --> 00:49:06,160
questions were put where people said,

899
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:11,160
But hang on, there's the
slippery slope arguments.

900
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:18,400
The where will it endism
comes into dialogue

901
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:20,750
with the What aboutism, right?

902
00:49:20,750 --> 00:49:23,020
So you talk about returning
the Benin bronzes,

903
00:49:23,020 --> 00:49:25,620
and then people say, well, what
about the Parthenon Marbles?

904
00:49:25,620 --> 00:49:28,470
And what about the
statues to Easter Island?

905
00:49:28,470 --> 00:49:30,510
And before you know it, you're talking

906
00:49:30,510 --> 00:49:35,510
about having to FedEx the
Lewis Chessmen from London

907
00:49:37,380 --> 00:49:39,050
to the Hebrides, right.

908
00:49:39,050 --> 00:49:43,340
These are we know, that
restitution takes time

909
00:49:43,340 --> 00:49:48,340
that the ethics of care
mean that it is a process

910
00:49:48,630 --> 00:49:53,523
that we accept is on a case by case basis.

911
00:49:54,540 --> 00:49:59,530
But that doesn't--how long
can we retain the idea

912
00:49:59,530 --> 00:50:03,870
that we will return items
to indigenous communities

913
00:50:03,870 --> 00:50:05,750
but somehow the continent of Africa.

914
00:50:05,750 --> 00:50:08,270
No that's out of the question.

915
00:50:08,270 --> 00:50:09,120
I mean, what are we doing?

916
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:11,530
Where does that come from?

917
00:50:11,530 --> 00:50:13,390
Part of where it comes from of course

918
00:50:13,390 --> 00:50:17,600
is we're talking about
different forms of colonialism.

919
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:18,500
We're talking if you read

920
00:50:18,500 --> 00:50:21,320
the Settler Colonialist Literature,

921
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:24,100
and in the book I talk about Patrick Wolf

922
00:50:24,100 --> 00:50:29,100
in his fantastic final book
very sadly before he died,

923
00:50:29,730 --> 00:50:31,730
which is called Traces of History,

924
00:50:31,730 --> 00:50:35,039
where he talks about
not just how the Settler

925
00:50:35,039 --> 00:50:40,039
Colonial Literature shows
us that settler colonization

926
00:50:40,210 --> 00:50:42,900
is only one form of colonialism,

927
00:50:42,900 --> 00:50:47,180
that's extractive militarist
colonialism as well,

928
00:50:47,180 --> 00:50:49,210
that takes a very, very different form.

929
00:50:49,210 --> 00:50:52,683
But as he argues different
forms of ideologies of race,

930
00:50:53,530 --> 00:50:58,380
went hand in hand with
notions of land and notions

931
00:50:58,380 --> 00:51:03,380
of the body, notions of
indigeneity versus blackness,

932
00:51:04,170 --> 00:51:08,340
and he talks about that
and only when we read

933
00:51:08,340 --> 00:51:09,500
it from a museum perspective,

934
00:51:09,500 --> 00:51:13,730
we realize that some of these complexities

935
00:51:13,730 --> 00:51:17,383
relates to what can and can't be said,

936
00:51:20,130 --> 00:51:22,930
what can and can't be given back,

937
00:51:22,930 --> 00:51:24,593
in our museum contexts.

938
00:51:25,620 --> 00:51:29,310
Why is it that we have
not had a conversation

939
00:51:29,310 --> 00:51:32,660
about anti-black violence
in anthroology museums,

940
00:51:32,660 --> 00:51:36,240
when crucially, only at the beginning

941
00:51:36,240 --> 00:51:41,240
of what does it look
like to address violence

942
00:51:41,310 --> 00:51:42,560
against indigenous people,

943
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:46,310
and the way in which that and
the ongoing debts and so on.

944
00:51:46,310 --> 00:51:51,310
These museums, these are not
questions that are irrelevant.

945
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:55,080
This where were being co-opted,
this is part of our history.

946
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:57,330
And I think we're simply at the point

947
00:51:57,330 --> 00:52:00,540
where I mean, I recently wrote an amicus

948
00:52:01,722 --> 00:52:03,410
for the case of the important case,

949
00:52:03,410 --> 00:52:05,990
which everyone in this room
should be keeping up with,

950
00:52:05,990 --> 00:52:09,300
because it's so important the case brought

951
00:52:09,300 --> 00:52:12,620
by Tamara Lanier against Harvard's,

952
00:52:12,620 --> 00:52:17,100
in the case of the
daguerreotypes of her ancestors.

953
00:52:17,100 --> 00:52:19,260
These are daguerreotypes
that were taken of

954
00:52:19,260 --> 00:52:21,420
to enslave people.

955
00:52:21,420 --> 00:52:24,800
And the question is about
what is the property

956
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:29,780
right that Harvard has in the photographs,

957
00:52:29,780 --> 00:52:32,403
we're seeing conversations at Penn,

958
00:52:34,492 --> 00:52:38,560
around the Morton Collection,
the historic collection

959
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:43,560
of human remains, which include
enslaved African Americans.

960
00:52:46,720 --> 00:52:48,560
Yeah, that's a conversation
happening at Harvard

961
00:52:48,560 --> 00:52:52,260
at the Peabody with 20,000 individuals

962
00:52:52,260 --> 00:52:55,320
represented in their
human remains collections.

963
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:58,810
But of course, most
shockingly, we saw with Penn,

964
00:52:58,810 --> 00:53:03,140
the use, not of historic human remains,

965
00:53:03,140 --> 00:53:06,000
but of the remains of two
children who were killed

966
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:08,530
in the MOVE bombing in the 1980s.

967
00:53:08,530 --> 00:53:13,530
being used in a MOOC, in a
MOOC which was run by Princeton

968
00:53:16,693 --> 00:53:19,230
that just shows the
violence in a very real way.

969
00:53:19,230 --> 00:53:21,400
The disciplinary violence of anthropology

970
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:23,420
of the museum is not over.

971
00:53:23,420 --> 00:53:25,780
I mean, no one these are
institutional, no one,

972
00:53:25,780 --> 00:53:29,000
this is institutional
violence, institutional racism.

973
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:32,340
And therefore we just have no choice,

974
00:53:32,340 --> 00:53:35,030
because our communities, our audiences,

975
00:53:35,030 --> 00:53:40,030
the public, we claim we serve
are demanding increasingly,

976
00:53:40,230 --> 00:53:43,113
like the shift that's happened
in the fashion industry.

977
00:53:44,100 --> 00:53:48,290
People who are ethical consumers

978
00:53:48,290 --> 00:53:51,310
want not just to know where

979
00:53:51,310 --> 00:53:53,620
what they're consuming came from,

980
00:53:53,620 --> 00:53:56,420
but what conditions it was produced under.

981
00:53:56,420 --> 00:53:59,490
People asked me the same
about world culture.

982
00:53:59,490 --> 00:54:01,480
So this isn't about
emptying out the museum.

983
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,220
It's not about sending everything back.

984
00:54:03,220 --> 00:54:07,980
It's about giving back when
asked, as we already do,

985
00:54:07,980 --> 00:54:10,400
in so many other contexts.

986
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:14,633
Why is it we're so loath
to countenance this?

987
00:54:15,693 --> 00:54:17,820
I don't know, but we need to
ask ourselves that question.

988
00:54:17,820 --> 00:54:19,000
What's going on?

989
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,690
What is it this idea of our fragility

990
00:54:21,690 --> 00:54:23,453
that we're gonna lose something?

991
00:54:24,460 --> 00:54:26,260
Of course will be someone else's game.

992
00:54:26,260 --> 00:54:27,920
Is it financial?

993
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:29,370
Is it about identity?

994
00:54:29,370 --> 00:54:30,370
Is it about violence?

995
00:54:30,370 --> 00:54:31,800
What going on?

996
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:33,780
We're just the beginning
of those conversations,

997
00:54:33,780 --> 00:54:34,861
though, I think now.

998
00:54:34,861 --> 00:54:38,403
So I hope that answers the question.

999
00:54:38,403 --> 00:54:39,490
- I think so, yeah.

1000
00:54:39,490 --> 00:54:43,210
Sorry, there's a few more
questions in the chat.

1001
00:54:43,210 --> 00:54:45,690
And one of the original questioners

1002
00:54:45,690 --> 00:54:49,010
just wanted to clarify her position a bit

1003
00:54:49,010 --> 00:54:53,980
because I think she's
asking if you could talk

1004
00:54:53,980 --> 00:54:57,430
about the ideal situation
for repatriation museums.

1005
00:54:57,430 --> 00:54:59,410
I think you've addressed
that somewhat in terms

1006
00:54:59,410 --> 00:55:01,973
of this ethical practice
that you're describing.

1007
00:55:03,060 --> 00:55:06,130
But maybe we can return to that.

1008
00:55:06,130 --> 00:55:10,030
And right, so the ideal
situation for repatriation

1009
00:55:10,030 --> 00:55:14,090
and then to a question asked by Isabel,

1010
00:55:14,090 --> 00:55:19,090
about can you elaborate more
on your idea of a world Museum?

1011
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:23,270
What might a world museum
reconfigured in this way

1012
00:55:23,270 --> 00:55:24,750
then look like?

1013
00:55:24,750 --> 00:55:28,343
Would it be about only having
items that were donated?

1014
00:55:29,510 --> 00:55:31,890
Even if you can't do the necrography?

1015
00:55:31,890 --> 00:55:33,823
I'm elaborating on this, right?

1016
00:55:34,827 --> 00:55:39,510
- On that point I mean,
the Savoy-Sarr report

1017
00:55:39,510 --> 00:55:41,930
is the ground zero for this, right?

1018
00:55:41,930 --> 00:55:43,920
So if anyone hasn't read
the Savoy-Sarr report,

1019
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:45,120
it's online, it's in French,

1020
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:46,940
there's a dodgy English translation.

1021
00:55:46,940 --> 00:55:47,773
If you get that.

1022
00:55:47,773 --> 00:55:50,840
So I suggest you read the French

1023
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:55,840
but if you can, the fairly
flaky English version

1024
00:55:56,330 --> 00:55:57,253
will do fine.

1025
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:01,630
So I was at the Musee du Quay
Branly when that came out,

1026
00:56:01,630 --> 00:56:06,450
and some of the nameless curators

1027
00:56:06,450 --> 00:56:09,940
at the Branly, the great
shock in the tea rooms,

1028
00:56:09,940 --> 00:56:14,940
right the great horror among my colleagues

1029
00:56:16,130 --> 00:56:18,920
was that Benedicte and Felwine

1030
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:21,573
introduced the notion of consent.

1031
00:56:22,770 --> 00:56:23,970
And my colleagues were saying,

1032
00:56:23,970 --> 00:56:26,720
What is this language of sexual violence

1033
00:56:26,720 --> 00:56:28,710
doing in our museum?

1034
00:56:28,710 --> 00:56:33,710
This is over the top, this isn't
#MeToo, this is museum restitution,

1035
00:56:33,900 --> 00:56:34,920
what are they talking about?

1036
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:38,330
But of course, consent
is at the heart of this

1037
00:56:38,330 --> 00:56:41,930
and consent for an item to be on display.

1038
00:56:41,930 --> 00:56:46,580
If someone is saying that
this is their ancestor.

1039
00:56:46,580 --> 00:56:50,140
This is--Biological
anthropologists used to say

1040
00:56:50,140 --> 00:56:54,040
some continue to say, human
remains shouldn't be returned,

1041
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:56,790
because they might have
scientific information in them.

1042
00:56:58,590 --> 00:57:03,590
That's ship--one hopes--has sailed.

1043
00:57:06,043 --> 00:57:08,430
We have to keep it sailing, right?

1044
00:57:08,430 --> 00:57:09,263
- Exactly.

1045
00:57:12,270 --> 00:57:14,343
- Obviously, the same goes for culture.

1046
00:57:16,208 --> 00:57:17,260
So consent is at the heart of it,

1047
00:57:17,260 --> 00:57:21,850
we needn't fetishize the
physical movement, from A to B,

1048
00:57:21,850 --> 00:57:25,270
where learning that restitution
takes a whole host of forms.

1049
00:57:25,270 --> 00:57:28,073
Some of those forms is simply
signing over ownership,

1050
00:57:28,970 --> 00:57:33,800
signing over to say, okay,
it's now on loan to us.

1051
00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:38,340
And the consent, the agency of its owners

1052
00:57:39,180 --> 00:57:42,060
will be recognized by the
fact if they want it back,

1053
00:57:42,060 --> 00:57:43,650
they can have it back.

1054
00:57:43,650 --> 00:57:46,260
But for now, it's actually
doing quite a good job

1055
00:57:46,260 --> 00:57:48,080
in all sorts of very interesting questions

1056
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:49,693
about intellectual property.

1057
00:57:51,330 --> 00:57:55,720
That money I mean, we need
to, so the Nigerian debate

1058
00:57:55,720 --> 00:57:59,850
has been very, un-embarrassed about saying

1059
00:57:59,850 --> 00:58:02,740
that Western museums are profiting

1060
00:58:02,740 --> 00:58:04,670
from these items being on display,

1061
00:58:04,670 --> 00:58:08,220
So of course, there's a
financial implication here

1062
00:58:08,220 --> 00:58:12,430
as well over copyright,
over the fungibility.

1063
00:58:12,430 --> 00:58:17,300
I mean, if something is inalienable.

1064
00:58:17,300 --> 00:58:22,020
If something is ancestral, then
surely it can't be fungible.

1065
00:58:22,020 --> 00:58:24,040
I mean, the whole issue is, I mean

1066
00:58:24,040 --> 00:58:26,145
in the museum's we're talking
about NFTs all the time

1067
00:58:26,145 --> 00:58:26,978
at the moment.

1068
00:58:26,978 --> 00:58:29,949
Well, in some ways mean the original NFTs,

1069
00:58:29,949 --> 00:58:33,270
are ancestral artworks, that of course,

1070
00:58:33,270 --> 00:58:35,460
because the same as human beings

1071
00:58:35,460 --> 00:58:37,300
can't be bought and sold anymore.

1072
00:58:37,300 --> 00:58:40,900
Absolutely, rightly, these distinctions

1073
00:58:40,900 --> 00:58:45,900
that we make in the West
often, between artworks,

1074
00:58:45,970 --> 00:58:49,860
and human beings are not
made by all societies

1075
00:58:49,860 --> 00:58:51,210
and cultures in the world.

1076
00:58:51,210 --> 00:58:54,520
We've learned that from conversations

1077
00:58:54,520 --> 00:58:56,730
with indigenous communities.

1078
00:58:56,730 --> 00:58:59,850
We haven't started to
think about what that means

1079
00:58:59,850 --> 00:59:03,560
for sovereignty for traditional
religion, for culture,

1080
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:07,600
in African contexts, where
the presence of these items,

1081
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:09,200
the availability of these items,

1082
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:13,170
inspires fashion, it inspires tech,

1083
00:59:13,170 --> 00:59:16,280
it inspires movie making,
it inspires all all aspects

1084
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:19,380
of the economy as well as the
tourist economy, of course.

1085
00:59:19,380 --> 00:59:22,930
So yeah, in terms of
practicalities of return,

1086
00:59:22,930 --> 00:59:24,380
it's a case by case basis.

1087
00:59:24,380 --> 00:59:26,070
There is the legacy restoration trust

1088
00:59:26,070 --> 00:59:27,160
that's been set up now.

1089
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:28,510
The returns are happening.

1090
00:59:28,510 --> 00:59:30,670
I mean, Cambridge
University has given back.

1091
00:59:30,670 --> 00:59:32,400
Aberdeen University has given back

1092
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:36,150
even the Museum educate Bromley
has made physical returns

1093
00:59:36,150 --> 00:59:38,233
to Madagascar, to Senegal, to Benin.

1094
00:59:39,750 --> 00:59:42,630
And there were more on the
way to the Ivory Coast.

1095
00:59:42,630 --> 00:59:46,150
We're not gonna solve this overnight.

1096
00:59:46,150 --> 00:59:49,910
It's just what we're gonna now resolve

1097
00:59:49,910 --> 00:59:53,740
is the idea that we're not
gonna say under no circumstances

1098
00:59:53,740 --> 00:59:57,673
will we ever return stolen
goods to African claimants.

1099
00:59:58,530 --> 00:59:59,480
That's just racism.

1100
01:00:02,650 --> 01:00:05,430
I'm sorry, just to mention,

1101
01:00:05,430 --> 01:00:08,090
I would encourage anyone that reads German

1102
01:00:08,090 --> 01:00:10,610
to wait for the English translation,

1103
01:00:10,610 --> 01:00:11,630
which I think is in the works.

1104
01:00:11,630 --> 01:00:15,240
But Benedicte, has written
this incredibly important book

1105
01:00:15,240 --> 01:00:20,070
called Africa's Kunstraub, Africa's

1106
01:00:20,070 --> 01:00:22,030
Struggle for Her Art,

1107
01:00:22,030 --> 01:00:24,540
which is really the
companion volume to mine,

1108
01:00:24,540 --> 01:00:27,573
where she tells the story
of how from 1960 onwards,

1109
01:00:28,430 --> 01:00:32,730
actually European museums
created in conversation

1110
01:00:32,730 --> 01:00:35,960
with the politicians
and the administrators,

1111
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:39,820
and the civil servants,
a whole set of laws,

1112
01:00:39,820 --> 01:00:43,720
and a whole set of myths
that held back restitution,

1113
01:00:43,720 --> 01:00:45,590
because after a year of Africa in 1960,

1114
01:00:45,590 --> 01:00:49,230
where 19 African nations got independence,

1115
01:00:49,230 --> 01:00:52,165
they knew, of course, these
are items of sovereignty,

1116
01:00:52,165 --> 01:00:54,060
there are going to be demands for returns.

1117
01:00:54,060 --> 01:00:56,607
So the creation of the
British Museum Act of 1963

1118
01:00:58,420 --> 01:01:02,150
was not a random moment,
there were returns in the 30s,

1119
01:01:02,150 --> 01:01:04,260
the 40s, the 50s.

1120
01:01:04,260 --> 01:01:08,320
In the 60s suddenly, restitution is turned

1121
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:11,340
into something incredibly important

1122
01:01:11,340 --> 01:01:13,490
for the former colonial powers.

1123
01:01:13,490 --> 01:01:16,130
Now, what does that look like
in a North American context?

1124
01:01:16,130 --> 01:01:20,940
Well this is not purely
about the nation state,

1125
01:01:20,940 --> 01:01:24,190
the reckoning with actually
the British colonial past

1126
01:01:24,190 --> 01:01:26,860
is being led from Berlin,
where they've said,

1127
01:01:26,860 --> 01:01:29,700
every one of the Berlin
bronzes in the federal museums

1128
01:01:29,700 --> 01:01:32,910
across Germany, will be returned.

1129
01:01:32,910 --> 01:01:34,170
So for American institutions,

1130
01:01:34,170 --> 01:01:37,183
your position is rather like the Germans.

1131
01:01:39,180 --> 01:01:41,270
Some in this room may say,
well, we bought it fair

1132
01:01:41,270 --> 01:01:42,770
and square at auction.

1133
01:01:42,770 --> 01:01:47,770
This isn't our war, we are
conserving it, we're saving it.

1134
01:01:47,890 --> 01:01:48,960
What you got to realize, though,

1135
01:01:48,960 --> 01:01:52,090
is that the Anthropology Museum,
the World Culture Museum,

1136
01:01:52,090 --> 01:01:54,700
was co-opted for a short period of time

1137
01:01:54,700 --> 01:01:56,860
between the 1880s and 1920s.

1138
01:01:56,860 --> 01:01:59,770
And turned into a site of propaganda

1139
01:01:59,770 --> 01:02:02,960
to say, essentially,
and this is in the book,

1140
01:02:02,960 --> 01:02:05,873
what I call the notion
of the chronopolitical,

1141
01:02:07,728 --> 01:02:12,020
you destroy the city,
the sacred landscape,

1142
01:02:12,020 --> 01:02:15,240
you take the arts, and within weeks,

1143
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:18,690
it's being displayed in
Berlin, in London, in Oxford.

1144
01:02:18,690 --> 01:02:22,780
In London, it's displayed
in the Assyrian Saloon

1145
01:02:22,780 --> 01:02:23,950
of the British Museum,

1146
01:02:23,950 --> 01:02:26,650
it's next to the Bronze Age.

1147
01:02:26,650 --> 01:02:29,260
So the Middle East objects
are next to ancient Egypt,

1148
01:02:29,260 --> 01:02:32,220
the message is clear, we've blown you back

1149
01:02:32,220 --> 01:02:35,680
into the Bronze Age,
you are archaeological,

1150
01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:38,200
we've killed your culture, you're dead.

1151
01:02:38,200 --> 01:02:41,463
And we were using the
discipline of archaeology.

1152
01:02:42,670 --> 01:02:44,760
As a form of things,
we're still doing that,

1153
01:02:44,760 --> 01:02:46,550
with these items, if they are on display,

1154
01:02:46,550 --> 01:02:50,653
no matter what their life
histories are, how they got there.

1155
01:02:51,740 --> 01:02:55,260
Remember, the art market
is just another form

1156
01:02:55,260 --> 01:02:58,840
of the corporate powers
that we're attacking.

1157
01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:03,840
This is partly capitalism
roaring in tooth and nail

1158
01:03:05,732 --> 01:03:06,963
that is happening there.

1159
01:03:07,991 --> 01:03:09,660
And so of course, the art market

1160
01:03:09,660 --> 01:03:14,660
is hardly a neutral player;
the turning of sacred art

1161
01:03:15,350 --> 01:03:17,670
into a commodity that
can be bought and sold

1162
01:03:17,670 --> 01:03:19,943
or displayed is part of that violence.

1163
01:03:20,900 --> 01:03:23,140
- Yeah, I wanna actually really thank you

1164
01:03:23,140 --> 01:03:24,380
for raising those issues.

1165
01:03:24,380 --> 01:03:27,780
That's a lot of what my
work in my classes here

1166
01:03:27,780 --> 01:03:32,237
have focused on is the way
that these objects are not,

1167
01:03:35,880 --> 01:03:38,340
like the conception of
the object across cultures

1168
01:03:38,340 --> 01:03:40,110
is not a universal.

1169
01:03:40,110 --> 01:03:43,560
And so to say that you can put a value

1170
01:03:43,560 --> 01:03:48,560
on an ancestor and then
create a set of equivalences.

1171
01:03:49,590 --> 01:03:53,190
I mean, this makes it
much more complicated.

1172
01:03:53,190 --> 01:03:55,190
It's not to say that, oh,
well, we don't have to,

1173
01:03:55,190 --> 01:03:57,750
we'll give you the object back
to you, have your ancestor,

1174
01:03:57,750 --> 01:04:01,020
and then we don't have
to do anything further.

1175
01:04:01,020 --> 01:04:03,950
But it also isn't just
as simple as a payment.

1176
01:04:03,950 --> 01:04:07,870
And I think that I really
appreciate the sensitivity

1177
01:04:07,870 --> 01:04:11,060
to which you've addressed that issue.

1178
01:04:11,060 --> 01:04:13,920
The other thing I'll
just point out for those

1179
01:04:13,920 --> 01:04:16,790
here the Fleming Museum's African,

1180
01:04:16,790 --> 01:04:20,350
it was the gallery of African
in ancient Egyptian art,

1181
01:04:20,350 --> 01:04:23,250
did the kind of chronopolitical work

1182
01:04:23,250 --> 01:04:26,100
that you're describing,
where most of the objects

1183
01:04:26,100 --> 01:04:29,410
on the African side of the
gallery were from 20th century

1184
01:04:29,410 --> 01:04:33,070
maybe late 19th century.

1185
01:04:33,070 --> 01:04:36,110
And then there was an ancient
Egypt on the other side.

1186
01:04:36,110 --> 01:04:38,490
And so it created, it
elided senses of time

1187
01:04:38,490 --> 01:04:40,880
that made all of African
cultural production

1188
01:04:40,880 --> 01:04:43,260
appear as though it was in the past.

1189
01:04:43,260 --> 01:04:45,530
That is part of why that
gallery is no longer

1190
01:04:45,530 --> 01:04:47,320
in existence in the Fleming Museum.

1191
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:48,305
And that's part of what
we're trying to work

1192
01:04:48,305 --> 01:04:50,403
through with this set of events here.

1193
01:04:51,770 --> 01:04:54,363
So just to turn to a
couple more questions,

1194
01:04:55,910 --> 01:04:57,910
I apologize to the audience
members whose questions

1195
01:04:57,910 --> 01:05:01,070
I've kind of mushing together
for the sake of time,

1196
01:05:01,070 --> 01:05:05,690
and to allow our speaker
time to answer them fully.

1197
01:05:05,690 --> 01:05:09,940
But there's a couple questions
about for you as a curator,

1198
01:05:09,940 --> 01:05:14,350
how has it felt to watch
this process happen?

1199
01:05:14,350 --> 01:05:19,170
And to then maybe identify
with this history of violence.

1200
01:05:19,170 --> 01:05:21,600
I think perhaps maybe
asking on a personal level

1201
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:23,423
as well as an institutional level.

1202
01:05:24,530 --> 01:05:28,730
And then what can people
who aren't curators

1203
01:05:28,730 --> 01:05:31,923
or anthropologists or even academics do?

1204
01:05:34,240 --> 01:05:37,900
- Sure, okay thank you, I think if I take

1205
01:05:37,900 --> 01:05:42,900
the second one first, that is absolutely.

1206
01:05:43,820 --> 01:05:46,330
This is being what's happening now,

1207
01:05:46,330 --> 01:05:50,960
is that communities,
audiences, stakeholders,

1208
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:54,900
especially in the university
museum sector so far,

1209
01:05:54,900 --> 01:05:58,150
but I think it's overdue
in the city museums.

1210
01:05:58,150 --> 01:06:03,150
And why is this conversation
not happening in Detroit,

1211
01:06:03,290 --> 01:06:05,880
for example, of all places,
where the Art Museum

1212
01:06:05,880 --> 01:06:08,730
does have significant African collection?

1213
01:06:08,730 --> 01:06:11,770
It is I know, there is some
colleagues here from RISD,

1214
01:06:11,770 --> 01:06:15,700
where, of course RISD in
Providence, Rhode Island

1215
01:06:15,700 --> 01:06:18,280
has been an incredibly important location

1216
01:06:18,280 --> 01:06:21,803
for these conversations, but
over the other side of town,

1217
01:06:22,910 --> 01:06:25,873
to Brown they're not
open to that half of them

1218
01:06:25,873 --> 01:06:27,770
they're not open to this.

1219
01:06:27,770 --> 01:06:30,767
Five Ivy League schools hold items

1220
01:06:33,610 --> 01:06:35,690
from the Benin expedition.

1221
01:06:35,690 --> 01:06:36,750
So where are we?

1222
01:06:36,750 --> 01:06:39,720
Where are these conversations happening?

1223
01:06:39,720 --> 01:06:42,630
They're happening in I
think, the university space

1224
01:06:42,630 --> 01:06:47,630
because it is a space
that requires free speech,

1225
01:06:48,130 --> 01:06:50,520
that requires academic freedom,

1226
01:06:50,520 --> 01:06:55,520
it allows us to think about
to have these conversations

1227
01:06:55,530 --> 01:06:59,320
and student activism
as I said, in my talk,

1228
01:06:59,320 --> 01:07:01,920
was incredibly important for me to learn,

1229
01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:05,610
actually for someone to
read this museum completely

1230
01:07:05,610 --> 01:07:10,610
differently from someone with
my lived experience of it.

1231
01:07:11,890 --> 01:07:13,510
And so maybe I could use that to highlight

1232
01:07:13,510 --> 01:07:17,040
then into the first part of the question,

1233
01:07:17,040 --> 01:07:18,883
which was about me personally.

1234
01:07:19,790 --> 01:07:23,434
Yeah, I mean, the next book I'm
working on that will be out,

1235
01:07:23,434 --> 01:07:28,434
probably early 2023, is a
biography of Augustus Pitt Rivers,

1236
01:07:30,060 --> 01:07:35,060
but written, as if tearing down a statue.

1237
01:07:36,080 --> 01:07:38,270
I'm interested in the notion of the naming

1238
01:07:38,270 --> 01:07:42,010
of the Pitt Rivers after a dead white man

1239
01:07:42,010 --> 01:07:47,010
and the risk of me, not so
many dead men shoes away

1240
01:07:48,640 --> 01:07:51,420
from him, as in my role as a curator.

1241
01:07:51,420 --> 01:07:54,090
If this is about institutional violence,

1242
01:07:54,090 --> 01:07:56,970
if this is about institutional racism,

1243
01:07:56,970 --> 01:08:01,970
then my identity as an
Oxford Don, as a curator,

1244
01:08:03,350 --> 01:08:04,880
of course, inherits that.

1245
01:08:04,880 --> 01:08:07,640
So the framing of what
I'm writing at the moment

1246
01:08:07,640 --> 01:08:12,640
when something like this,
for the world of nature,

1247
01:08:14,290 --> 01:08:17,010
the environmentalists rightly tell us

1248
01:08:17,970 --> 01:08:22,970
that we have to learn how
to be a good ancestor.

1249
01:08:23,090 --> 01:08:26,200
We have to leave a world behind us

1250
01:08:26,200 --> 01:08:30,540
that isn't full of toxic waste.

1251
01:08:30,540 --> 01:08:35,180
It isn't full of what Rob
Nixon calls slow violence,

1252
01:08:35,180 --> 01:08:38,030
environmental change, rising sea levels

1253
01:08:38,030 --> 01:08:39,990
that go up inch by inch,

1254
01:08:39,990 --> 01:08:42,600
but it is where you have to watch it

1255
01:08:42,600 --> 01:08:43,580
for a long time to see it.

1256
01:08:43,580 --> 01:08:47,250
But it is violence, operating it that way.

1257
01:08:47,250 --> 01:08:48,376
We have to be a good ancestor.

1258
01:08:48,376 --> 01:08:49,710
What does that mean, for those of us

1259
01:08:49,710 --> 01:08:52,714
in the world of culture, who operate

1260
01:08:52,714 --> 01:08:54,450
in the world of culture, not nature.

1261
01:08:54,450 --> 01:08:56,880
Well, it's sort of the
other side of the coin.

1262
01:08:56,880 --> 01:09:01,090
We have to learn to be a good descendant.

1263
01:09:01,090 --> 01:09:04,930
How do I inherit from Pitt Rivers,

1264
01:09:04,930 --> 01:09:08,670
everything that's good about
the World Culture Museum,

1265
01:09:08,670 --> 01:09:10,960
about the discipline of anthropology,

1266
01:09:10,960 --> 01:09:12,500
about the discipline of archeology,

1267
01:09:12,500 --> 01:09:15,460
this founding father not
just an anthropology museums,

1268
01:09:15,460 --> 01:09:17,560
but an anthropology as a discipline

1269
01:09:17,560 --> 01:09:19,370
at a time at which at Berkeley

1270
01:09:19,370 --> 01:09:24,270
there unnaming Kroeber Hall
because of what he did to Ishi

1271
01:09:25,620 --> 01:09:28,763
the Native American man
who was kept as an exhibit.

1272
01:09:30,380 --> 01:09:33,150
Kroeber was left off the hook

1273
01:09:33,150 --> 01:09:35,390
for quite a long time because the fact

1274
01:09:35,390 --> 01:09:37,690
that Ursula LeGuin was his daughter,

1275
01:09:37,690 --> 01:09:40,140
made him seem like, well,
he must be okay, right.

1276
01:09:41,280 --> 01:09:44,960
But the unnaming of Kroeber
Hall which of course also houses

1277
01:09:46,510 --> 01:09:47,843
the Phoebe Hearst museum.

1278
01:09:48,797 --> 01:09:51,730
And so the anthropology
Museum of the UC Berkeley,

1279
01:09:51,730 --> 01:09:54,410
that's an incredibly
important moment, I think.

1280
01:09:54,410 --> 01:09:59,410
So it's toxic masculinity
as well as toxic colonialism

1281
01:09:59,640 --> 01:10:01,790
that we risk here.

1282
01:10:01,790 --> 01:10:05,160
And I'm very interested, I
haven't got all the answers.

1283
01:10:05,160 --> 01:10:07,230
My work as I said, at the start

1284
01:10:07,230 --> 01:10:10,703
is I want to find something else,

1285
01:10:13,394 --> 01:10:17,313
something other than the
notion of the reflexive.

1286
01:10:18,310 --> 01:10:19,880
I don't just wanna be self-aware,

1287
01:10:19,880 --> 01:10:22,020
I want to find a way, in a meaningful way,

1288
01:10:22,020 --> 01:10:23,363
of undermining myself.

1289
01:10:25,227 --> 01:10:30,227
So that I'm not just another
person repeating the violences

1290
01:10:32,980 --> 01:10:34,050
that we inherit.

1291
01:10:34,050 --> 01:10:39,050
As an archaeologist, if I
dig, if I write on an object

1292
01:10:40,800 --> 01:10:44,460
in the museum, I'm physically with my body

1293
01:10:44,460 --> 01:10:46,320
retracing things learned

1294
01:10:47,300 --> 01:10:50,920
from not that far back from
the soldier anthropologists

1295
01:10:50,920 --> 01:10:52,370
that founded this museum.

1296
01:10:52,370 --> 01:10:56,300
Anthropology and archaeology
are the disciplines

1297
01:10:57,850 --> 01:11:01,010
that if someone wants to
describe them as experiments

1298
01:11:01,010 --> 01:11:02,810
we undertake with our bodies.

1299
01:11:02,810 --> 01:11:04,680
We take our bodies somewhere else,

1300
01:11:04,680 --> 01:11:08,590
we physically immerse ourselves
in a hole in the ground,

1301
01:11:08,590 --> 01:11:13,560
we dig it, we retrace
the processes of making

1302
01:11:13,560 --> 01:11:14,937
or digging that happened in the past

1303
01:11:14,937 --> 01:11:17,050
and the pit being filled
up, we take it apart,

1304
01:11:17,050 --> 01:11:19,340
we reenact the past.

1305
01:11:19,340 --> 01:11:22,860
There's a corporeal nature to ourselves.

1306
01:11:22,860 --> 01:11:25,010
As anthropologists,
there's a corporeal nature

1307
01:11:25,010 --> 01:11:26,713
to the visiting of a museum.

1308
01:11:28,051 --> 01:11:29,973
There's a sense of the body,

1309
01:11:31,400 --> 01:11:34,060
museums are full of bodies,
not only the dead bodies

1310
01:11:34,060 --> 01:11:37,090
that we don't wanna talk about,
of ancestral human remains,

1311
01:11:37,090 --> 01:11:39,960
but even the ancestral
presences that are there.

1312
01:11:39,960 --> 01:11:43,430
Even the sculptures in the art museums,

1313
01:11:43,430 --> 01:11:46,150
which are there to create have been used

1314
01:11:46,150 --> 01:11:48,830
to create a model of cultural whiteness.

1315
01:11:48,830 --> 01:11:52,403
So for me, that's where, that's
all a bit vague, isn't it?

1316
01:11:53,680 --> 01:11:56,630
For me, writing, thinking, talking

1317
01:11:56,630 --> 01:11:59,363
about how to evolve the
curatorial practice.

1318
01:12:00,230 --> 01:12:01,470
There were some quite rightly

1319
01:12:01,470 --> 01:12:04,440
there was a fantastic piece 18 months ago

1320
01:12:04,440 --> 01:12:08,060
now by Ryan Jobson about
whether we just need

1321
01:12:08,060 --> 01:12:10,690
to burn anthropology to the ground, right.

1322
01:12:10,690 --> 01:12:13,010
And I think that the
predicament anthropology

1323
01:12:13,010 --> 01:12:15,230
finds itself in is the same predicament

1324
01:12:15,230 --> 01:12:17,320
that the anthropology
museum finds itself in?

1325
01:12:17,320 --> 01:12:20,130
And of course, he's partly right.

1326
01:12:20,130 --> 01:12:22,380
Maybe we do in a time--and remember,

1327
01:12:22,380 --> 01:12:24,930
Jobson's the power of Jobson's piece

1328
01:12:24,930 --> 01:12:28,460
was it was being written
while California was on fire.

1329
01:12:28,460 --> 01:12:33,270
So the environmental effects
which are intimately bound up

1330
01:12:33,270 --> 01:12:36,050
with the extractivist histories

1331
01:12:36,050 --> 01:12:39,000
that are at the foundation of our museums.

1332
01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:42,200
We need to make sure we're
not continuing to pollute,

1333
01:12:42,200 --> 01:12:46,590
to hurt in the way that we were in part

1334
01:12:46,590 --> 01:12:48,360
built in order to do.

1335
01:12:48,360 --> 01:12:51,230
- Yeah, students on campus will know

1336
01:12:51,230 --> 01:12:54,420
that in the past couple of weeks,

1337
01:12:54,420 --> 01:12:56,210
as I've been talking about this event,

1338
01:12:56,210 --> 01:12:57,920
I've often resorted to that,

1339
01:12:57,920 --> 01:12:59,620
maybe we just need to burn it down

1340
01:12:59,620 --> 01:13:01,150
or rip it apart brick by brick,

1341
01:13:01,150 --> 01:13:05,120
because I think that
perhaps it's worth getting

1342
01:13:05,120 --> 01:13:06,600
to that point where you're really starting

1343
01:13:06,600 --> 01:13:09,863
to think is the foundation
worth saving, ultimately?

1344
01:13:10,710 --> 01:13:12,900
But I also really appreciate your thoughts

1345
01:13:12,900 --> 01:13:17,630
here about this effacement,
it's not even an effacement

1346
01:13:17,630 --> 01:13:18,810
because you're not erasing yourself,

1347
01:13:18,810 --> 01:13:19,860
you're undermining yourself.

1348
01:13:19,860 --> 01:13:21,260
I really liked that too.

1349
01:13:21,260 --> 01:13:23,660
Like that seems really
productive to think with.

1350
01:13:26,330 --> 01:13:30,223
I'm gonna read this question
back to curatorship again.

1351
01:13:31,080 --> 01:13:33,940
But it says, is the purpose
of a museum ultimately

1352
01:13:33,940 --> 01:13:37,030
to hold the physical object or
the story we have constructed

1353
01:13:37,030 --> 01:13:38,320
around that object?

1354
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:40,200
By returning objects, can we retain

1355
01:13:40,200 --> 01:13:43,080
and hold broader narratives,
not just about those objects,

1356
01:13:43,080 --> 01:13:44,900
but about ownership itself?

1357
01:13:44,900 --> 01:13:47,530
Can the vacuum that might
be physically created

1358
01:13:47,530 --> 01:13:49,300
be filled with representations that allow

1359
01:13:49,300 --> 01:13:51,570
for a deeper interrogation of our past

1360
01:13:51,570 --> 01:13:53,640
in the spaces that those
objects have filled?

1361
01:13:53,640 --> 01:13:55,190
And I like this question,
'cause it does allow us

1362
01:13:55,190 --> 01:13:58,830
to kind of reimagine,
like a possible museum

1363
01:13:58,830 --> 01:14:01,910
that is focused on
restitution and justice,

1364
01:14:01,910 --> 01:14:05,470
but I wonder what you
think about those questions

1365
01:14:05,470 --> 01:14:09,330
and how you might respond or
imagine the future museum?

1366
01:14:09,330 --> 01:14:12,343
- Sure, absolutely, so yeah,
it's a really good question.

1367
01:14:13,550 --> 01:14:17,490
I just wrote a piece for The
Sunday Telegraph last weekend,

1368
01:14:17,490 --> 01:14:20,910
which is a right wing newspaper in the UK

1369
01:14:20,910 --> 01:14:23,070
where it's always an interesting process

1370
01:14:23,070 --> 01:14:25,770
because the editor they really
wanted a pro-restitution

1371
01:14:25,770 --> 01:14:29,360
piece, simply to mix
it up a bit and realize

1372
01:14:29,360 --> 01:14:31,570
their readership are interested,

1373
01:14:31,570 --> 01:14:33,980
but they were really pressing me

1374
01:14:33,980 --> 01:14:37,110
which is really helpful
reminds us of the positives.

1375
01:14:37,110 --> 01:14:42,110
So let's go read it the point I made

1376
01:14:43,020 --> 01:14:45,490
was the returning is always,

1377
01:14:45,490 --> 01:14:47,340
you're always adding
something to the museum

1378
01:14:47,340 --> 01:14:49,230
you're adding to your civic role,

1379
01:14:49,230 --> 01:14:52,460
you're adding to your international
role as an institution.

1380
01:14:52,460 --> 01:14:57,240
The notion of gaps, yeah,
we need to productively

1381
01:14:58,550 --> 01:15:02,780
allow some spaces for memory

1382
01:15:04,204 --> 01:15:07,610
to impart the role of the museum
is as a site of conscience

1383
01:15:07,610 --> 01:15:10,590
society, these are
battlefields these are full,

1384
01:15:10,590 --> 01:15:12,563
literally of the dead,

1385
01:15:14,010 --> 01:15:18,690
who were the victims of empire and racism.

1386
01:15:18,690 --> 01:15:21,860
And we need to respect that in some ways,

1387
01:15:21,860 --> 01:15:23,940
as part if it's not the whole history

1388
01:15:23,940 --> 01:15:25,950
of the institution,
it's part of it though,

1389
01:15:25,950 --> 01:15:29,350
we need to recognize
the notion of the museum

1390
01:15:29,350 --> 01:15:32,830
as a crime scene, and to be appropriately

1391
01:15:34,680 --> 01:15:36,243
think about the ethics of that.

1392
01:15:38,160 --> 01:15:38,993
Let's remember that.

1393
01:15:38,993 --> 01:15:42,640
So this is a slight difference
with some North American

1394
01:15:42,640 --> 01:15:43,973
more art museums.

1395
01:15:45,360 --> 01:15:48,990
But the larger institutional
anthropology museums,

1396
01:15:48,990 --> 01:15:52,600
the vast majority of
items are not on display,

1397
01:15:52,600 --> 01:15:54,130
this is about what's in the storage,

1398
01:15:54,130 --> 01:15:55,790
we're not short of objects,

1399
01:15:55,790 --> 01:15:59,030
quite the opposite talk
to any museum curator

1400
01:15:59,030 --> 01:16:01,157
in those sorts of institutions,

1401
01:16:01,157 --> 01:16:04,010
and the whole problem is storage.

1402
01:16:04,010 --> 01:16:05,200
We've got too much,

1403
01:16:05,200 --> 01:16:10,200
so the idea that we're
gonna run out of culture.

1404
01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:12,110
And of course, many museums,

1405
01:16:12,110 --> 01:16:15,310
certainly this museum basically
stopped acquiring items

1406
01:16:16,160 --> 01:16:21,160
largely until 1939 really, or 1960.

1407
01:16:23,330 --> 01:16:25,270
We're not acquiring in the way we used to,

1408
01:16:25,270 --> 01:16:29,190
but of course, we could
be part of the repayment

1409
01:16:29,190 --> 01:16:32,120
part of the restitution is to commission

1410
01:16:32,120 --> 01:16:35,540
contemporary arts, from
Africa, from the global south

1411
01:16:35,540 --> 01:16:37,110
from indigenous communities.

1412
01:16:37,110 --> 01:16:39,460
Here in the UK, we have an artist trustee

1413
01:16:39,460 --> 01:16:44,313
of the British Museum, who
chose to use his Reith Lecture,

1414
01:16:45,570 --> 01:16:48,350
BBC lecture in 2014,

1415
01:16:48,350 --> 01:16:50,550
to make the argument
that Aboriginal artists

1416
01:16:50,550 --> 01:16:54,093
cannot be contemporary
artists, because what?

1417
01:16:55,574 --> 01:16:56,800
Because they're in the past, right?

1418
01:16:56,800 --> 01:16:59,240
I mean, it's the same old argument.

1419
01:16:59,240 --> 01:17:02,170
So we have to see our museums,

1420
01:17:02,170 --> 01:17:04,350
we have to break down the boundaries

1421
01:17:04,350 --> 01:17:08,750
between Western art and non-western art.

1422
01:17:08,750 --> 01:17:11,670
The west and the rest
is enacted far too much

1423
01:17:11,670 --> 01:17:12,580
in these institutions.

1424
01:17:12,580 --> 01:17:15,450
So contemporary art
commissioning is part of it,

1425
01:17:15,450 --> 01:17:18,927
without art-washing, without--the risk is.

1426
01:17:18,927 --> 01:17:21,580
And of course, some will
say don't return objects,

1427
01:17:21,580 --> 01:17:23,840
because we need them to tell our history

1428
01:17:23,840 --> 01:17:25,490
of violence even better.

1429
01:17:25,490 --> 01:17:27,500
Let's remember how wrong the "retain

1430
01:17:27,500 --> 01:17:29,200
and explain" ideology is.

1431
01:17:29,200 --> 01:17:31,300
Because these objects were always acquired

1432
01:17:31,300 --> 01:17:33,270
to tell the story of victory.

1433
01:17:33,270 --> 01:17:35,630
Why does the story of
the defeat of the Oba

1434
01:17:35,630 --> 01:17:39,550
have to be told in 160
museums around the world?

1435
01:17:39,550 --> 01:17:42,530
What's that about? What's going
on to be a universal Museum?

1436
01:17:42,530 --> 01:17:46,770
You've got to have a Benin
bronze and a very, really honest,

1437
01:17:46,770 --> 01:17:48,790
super honest account of all the blood

1438
01:17:48,790 --> 01:17:50,920
and violence and horror. Why?

1439
01:17:50,920 --> 01:17:52,560
What's that about?

1440
01:17:52,560 --> 01:17:54,320
It began right from the start.

1441
01:17:54,320 --> 01:17:57,070
It was about telling the story
of the defeat of the Oba.

1442
01:17:57,070 --> 01:17:59,690
Even if we do it supposedly, honestly,

1443
01:17:59,690 --> 01:18:02,623
we're just re-inscribing that
violence, that's the risk.

1444
01:18:03,630 --> 01:18:06,760
So yeah, I mean, we've
never needed museums,

1445
01:18:06,760 --> 01:18:09,940
World Culture Museums more
than we do in the present.

1446
01:18:09,940 --> 01:18:13,290
We just need to allow them to evolve.

1447
01:18:13,290 --> 01:18:15,233
- Yeah, thanks, that's great.

1448
01:18:16,510 --> 01:18:18,010
I imagine a lot of students

1449
01:18:18,010 --> 01:18:21,270
are gonna be logging out soon
because of the class shift.

1450
01:18:21,270 --> 01:18:23,160
And I do wanna just say before

1451
01:18:24,030 --> 01:18:28,900
there's one more question
that has been recorded.

1452
01:18:28,900 --> 01:18:31,680
And we do hope to be able to post a video

1453
01:18:31,680 --> 01:18:34,943
of the recording and the
question and answer portion.

1454
01:18:36,060 --> 01:18:39,650
Soon, we need to make
sure we have captions done

1455
01:18:39,650 --> 01:18:41,980
for the video before we can share it.

1456
01:18:41,980 --> 01:18:44,470
But I just wanted to
let everybody know that

1457
01:18:44,470 --> 01:18:49,100
this will be available
and we'll let you know

1458
01:18:49,100 --> 01:18:51,713
how it will be made
available to the public.

1459
01:18:52,793 --> 01:18:55,690
So the last question--it's interesting,

1460
01:18:55,690 --> 01:18:59,520
it's a very kind of historical
technical question, I think.

1461
01:18:59,520 --> 01:19:04,520
But it's asking about the
way that, so let me read it.

1462
01:19:06,640 --> 01:19:10,030
It says you stated these
lootings were not a side effect

1463
01:19:10,030 --> 01:19:13,200
of British attacks, but a
central military strategy.

1464
01:19:13,200 --> 01:19:16,150
Can you elaborate, were they really truly

1465
01:19:16,150 --> 01:19:20,470
after the artifacts or
were they interested

1466
01:19:20,470 --> 01:19:22,400
in the production of power?

1467
01:19:22,400 --> 01:19:25,010
And I think just maybe
some clarity about the way

1468
01:19:25,010 --> 01:19:28,170
you see those two things as
interrelated would be useful.

1469
01:19:28,170 --> 01:19:30,210
- Sure, absolutely, so
losing becomes something

1470
01:19:30,210 --> 01:19:33,010
very, very distinctive in this timeframe

1471
01:19:33,010 --> 01:19:34,830
we're talking about.

1472
01:19:34,830 --> 01:19:39,830
There are, obviously, objects
have always moved from A to B,

1473
01:19:43,000 --> 01:19:46,320
the trophies of war
have always been taken.

1474
01:19:46,320 --> 01:19:50,700
But there's something about
these attacks upon Africa

1475
01:19:50,700 --> 01:19:52,700
and arguably other parts of the world

1476
01:19:52,700 --> 01:19:56,170
that happened in what the
book calls World War Zero,

1477
01:19:56,170 --> 01:20:01,010
which is this pre-run to the great horrors

1478
01:20:01,010 --> 01:20:02,680
of the 20th century,

1479
01:20:02,680 --> 01:20:05,310
the relation and of course,
the looting reemerges

1480
01:20:07,368 --> 01:20:10,983
on the soils of Europe, in
the 1920s and 30s, as well.

1481
01:20:12,310 --> 01:20:16,190
This connection between
cultural dispossession

1482
01:20:16,190 --> 01:20:21,190
and cultural supremacy has
a very tight timeframe.

1483
01:20:22,480 --> 01:20:25,400
So looting isn't
happening in the colonies,

1484
01:20:25,400 --> 01:20:28,970
it's happening on the edges of
empire, in the protectorates.

1485
01:20:28,970 --> 01:20:32,150
And the protectorate
is what historians call

1486
01:20:32,150 --> 01:20:37,150
variously spaces of indirect role,

1487
01:20:40,610 --> 01:20:43,363
spaces of informal empire,

1488
01:20:43,363 --> 01:20:45,310
they're even some to--Cain and Hopkins,

1489
01:20:45,310 --> 01:20:50,310
famously called it the history
of a gentlemanly capitalism.

1490
01:20:53,030 --> 01:20:55,330
These are the edges of empire

1491
01:20:55,330 --> 01:21:00,330
where you haven't got a
full crown colony setup.

1492
01:21:00,380 --> 01:21:04,160
You're in your--I mean,
it's a protectorate,

1493
01:21:04,160 --> 01:21:06,510
you're being protected, like
the mafia protects you, right?

1494
01:21:06,510 --> 01:21:09,107
I mean, this is protection of that kind,

1495
01:21:09,107 --> 01:21:13,620
and something elides there
between protection of that kind,

1496
01:21:13,620 --> 01:21:16,890
and protecting the artworks in museums.

1497
01:21:16,890 --> 01:21:19,480
The museums are part of the infrastructure

1498
01:21:19,480 --> 01:21:21,170
of the protectorate.

1499
01:21:21,170 --> 01:21:24,810
So the taking because these
are objects of culture

1500
01:21:24,810 --> 01:21:27,620
of sovereignty of belief,

1501
01:21:27,620 --> 01:21:30,070
and that's what you're trying to take,

1502
01:21:30,070 --> 01:21:34,160
then of course, I mean
it's like a serial killer

1503
01:21:34,160 --> 01:21:37,160
that takes items from their victim.

1504
01:21:37,160 --> 01:21:39,890
And I think that analogy
is one we always ought

1505
01:21:39,890 --> 01:21:43,230
to hold in our hands
when people start arguing

1506
01:21:43,230 --> 01:21:46,970
against returns, or say,
oh, we should make a 3D copy

1507
01:21:46,970 --> 01:21:49,170
before we send it back or whatever.

1508
01:21:49,170 --> 01:21:54,170
This is imagine if the survivors
or the victims of violence

1509
01:21:55,960 --> 01:21:59,207
of that kind, after
the serial killer dies,

1510
01:21:59,207 --> 01:22:03,660
and the family say, well what's
gonna happen to these items?

1511
01:22:03,660 --> 01:22:04,910
Are you gonna return them

1512
01:22:05,810 --> 01:22:07,750
to the families or to the survivors?

1513
01:22:07,750 --> 01:22:10,120
Well, yeah, I mean, maybe

1514
01:22:10,120 --> 01:22:12,300
but there'll be a long term process,

1515
01:22:12,300 --> 01:22:14,450
we need to just take
a copy of these things

1516
01:22:14,450 --> 01:22:17,290
before we do. You know,
that's all just horrific,

1517
01:22:17,290 --> 01:22:19,070
and that's what we're dealing with here.

1518
01:22:19,070 --> 01:22:22,140
We're dealing with
ongoing acts of violence

1519
01:22:22,140 --> 01:22:25,920
and recognizing we have
to stop the pretense

1520
01:22:25,920 --> 01:22:28,490
which was at the heart
of why arts and culture

1521
01:22:28,490 --> 01:22:30,030
was put to work in this
way in the first place.

1522
01:22:30,030 --> 01:22:32,200
It's incredibly hard for
us to think of a museum

1523
01:22:32,200 --> 01:22:36,050
as anything other than something
that needs to be supported.

1524
01:22:36,050 --> 01:22:39,360
But of course, we go back Fanon,

1525
01:22:39,360 --> 01:22:42,970
we go back, actually to
Sylvia Wynter with her account

1526
01:22:42,970 --> 01:22:46,200
of the emergence of liberal humanism,

1527
01:22:46,200 --> 01:22:48,210
as a form of violence in the
middle of the 19th century,

1528
01:22:48,210 --> 01:22:50,750
universalism, saying everyone's human,

1529
01:22:50,750 --> 01:22:55,020
but it's kind of actually
just certain male white

1530
01:22:56,601 --> 01:22:58,770
European form of humanity.

1531
01:22:58,770 --> 01:23:00,760
That really means you can be human,

1532
01:23:00,760 --> 01:23:02,410
everyone's human, as
long as you're all human,

1533
01:23:02,410 --> 01:23:03,373
like we are human.

1534
01:23:05,610 --> 01:23:08,600
That puts at the heart of
it, the work of culture,

1535
01:23:08,600 --> 01:23:11,110
in terms of cultural supremacy.

1536
01:23:11,110 --> 01:23:12,340
That's what we're reckoning with,

1537
01:23:12,340 --> 01:23:17,317
and this is just the beginning
I think of a major reckoning.

1538
01:23:18,370 --> 01:23:22,090
It's an ongoing part of
the Civil Rights Movement.

1539
01:23:22,090 --> 01:23:25,590
It's a historical realization,

1540
01:23:25,590 --> 01:23:30,336
when the Belgians have set
up a national commission

1541
01:23:30,336 --> 01:23:32,470
to look at the Belgian Congo.

1542
01:23:32,470 --> 01:23:34,410
When Macron is doing what
he's doing in France,

1543
01:23:34,410 --> 01:23:37,120
the Swiss are looking at
their imperial histories,

1544
01:23:37,120 --> 01:23:40,380
obviously in Germany, experts

1545
01:23:40,380 --> 01:23:42,960
on post memory because they've had to deal

1546
01:23:42,960 --> 01:23:46,460
both with the inheritances from communism

1547
01:23:46,460 --> 01:23:49,210
and also from fascism.

1548
01:23:49,210 --> 01:23:51,610
This is happening, people
are seeing these histories

1549
01:23:51,610 --> 01:23:53,390
that we pretended didn't happen.

1550
01:23:53,390 --> 01:23:55,360
We're seeing these violences in new ways.

1551
01:23:55,360 --> 01:23:57,320
How that plays out in North America

1552
01:23:57,320 --> 01:24:01,470
this is crucial, we need all
the thinking in this room

1553
01:24:01,470 --> 01:24:06,470
to help work out what this
means for the US and Canada

1554
01:24:06,890 --> 01:24:09,611
because we need to join the dots

1555
01:24:09,611 --> 01:24:12,061
between anti-black violence in the present

1556
01:24:13,320 --> 01:24:15,920
between the carceral space I mean,

1557
01:24:15,920 --> 01:24:20,150
there's so much about all this.

1558
01:24:20,150 --> 01:24:23,730
There's an amazing writing
on prisons at the moment.

1559
01:24:23,730 --> 01:24:26,773
Yeah, Nicole Fleetwood's important book,

1560
01:24:27,967 --> 01:24:32,580
her notion of the carceral aesthetics'

1561
01:24:32,580 --> 01:24:34,110
that can emerge in prisons.

1562
01:24:34,110 --> 01:24:36,520
Let's link the history of the prison

1563
01:24:36,520 --> 01:24:38,070
with the history of the museum.

1564
01:24:39,940 --> 01:24:41,440
Let's see what's going on in those ways.

1565
01:24:41,440 --> 01:24:45,660
So it's an incredibly
exciting time to reimagine

1566
01:24:45,660 --> 01:24:49,800
and reunderstand how
important museums were

1567
01:24:49,800 --> 01:24:50,990
to some of these histories

1568
01:24:50,990 --> 01:24:55,280
and how they can be part of
the solution in the present.

1569
01:24:55,280 --> 01:24:57,970
- Yeah, and I just would add to that,

1570
01:24:57,970 --> 01:25:01,370
that many of the objects
in the Flemming Museum's

1571
01:25:01,370 --> 01:25:04,500
collection of African
art were actually donated

1572
01:25:04,500 --> 01:25:08,950
by a university alumni who
had either 11 missionaries

1573
01:25:08,950 --> 01:25:12,070
on the continent, or
members of the Peace Corps,

1574
01:25:12,070 --> 01:25:16,820
which are again, it's not
quite maybe this spectacular,

1575
01:25:16,820 --> 01:25:19,910
visceral form of violence
of the Benin expedition,

1576
01:25:19,910 --> 01:25:22,030
but it's certainly contributing

1577
01:25:22,030 --> 01:25:24,080
to this ongoing reproduction of violence

1578
01:25:24,080 --> 01:25:25,250
that you're describing.

1579
01:25:25,250 --> 01:25:28,010
And so what we can do are in necrographies

1580
01:25:28,010 --> 01:25:31,140
for these flashpoint objects.

1581
01:25:31,140 --> 01:25:34,010
We certainly wanna think
about all of the other objects

1582
01:25:34,010 --> 01:25:37,610
that have been part of the
museum and as a result of that.

1583
01:25:37,610 --> 01:25:40,010
- Yes, absolutely, so
I mean, just to finish,

1584
01:25:40,010 --> 01:25:41,543
make sure we make this point.

1585
01:25:43,300 --> 01:25:44,133
This isn't good.

1586
01:25:44,133 --> 01:25:45,710
This isn't just about
returning the Benin bronzes

1587
01:25:45,710 --> 01:25:47,640
and then this is over, right?

1588
01:25:47,640 --> 01:25:50,860
This is about understanding
those many other conflicts,

1589
01:25:50,860 --> 01:25:52,590
we have a project called the
Restitution of Knowledge,

1590
01:25:52,590 --> 01:25:54,750
it's looking at the many other expeditions

1591
01:25:54,750 --> 01:25:57,010
that were undertaken across
the continent of Africa.

1592
01:25:57,010 --> 01:25:58,570
These are histories that
haven't been written,

1593
01:25:58,570 --> 01:26:00,670
we can document minute by minute,

1594
01:26:00,670 --> 01:26:02,790
the First World War, the Second World War.

1595
01:26:02,790 --> 01:26:05,750
We don't know about these
incredibly important

1596
01:26:05,750 --> 01:26:08,710
massive operations across
the continent of Africa.

1597
01:26:08,710 --> 01:26:10,270
So we need to understand that.

1598
01:26:10,270 --> 01:26:13,210
But we also I think at
the heart of the book

1599
01:26:13,210 --> 01:26:16,280
is the question how near
are you right this moment,

1600
01:26:16,280 --> 01:26:17,960
from the looted African objects,

1601
01:26:17,960 --> 01:26:20,430
and you're always nearer than you think,

1602
01:26:20,430 --> 01:26:21,973
wherever in the world you are.

1603
01:26:23,890 --> 01:26:25,730
There's an updated list
of the institutions

1604
01:26:25,730 --> 01:26:28,200
that hold these items in
the paperback edition,

1605
01:26:28,200 --> 01:26:31,603
which is also online as an ebook,

1606
01:26:33,044 --> 01:26:35,990
and I put the link in the chat earlier.

1607
01:26:35,990 --> 01:26:39,310
But adding to those lists
with other African histories

1608
01:26:39,310 --> 01:26:41,030
adding to and of course, what I'm hoping

1609
01:26:41,030 --> 01:26:42,910
is, in the third edition of the book,

1610
01:26:42,910 --> 01:26:45,363
we're gonna start, that
number is gonna go down,

1611
01:26:46,929 --> 01:26:48,210
the overall number of objects

1612
01:26:48,210 --> 01:26:51,900
that are held in the
new museum in Edo state

1613
01:26:51,900 --> 01:26:52,733
will be going up.

1614
01:26:52,733 --> 01:26:55,020
So let's hope that we see,

1615
01:26:55,020 --> 01:26:57,970
and that we have that
conversation that's happening,

1616
01:26:57,970 --> 01:27:00,390
hopefully, at your institution,

1617
01:27:00,390 --> 01:27:04,270
you'll be able to join what's increasingly

1618
01:27:04,270 --> 01:27:07,430
just the most important
movement for museums,

1619
01:27:07,430 --> 01:27:10,560
that is the most optimistic
moment for museums

1620
01:27:10,560 --> 01:27:12,430
in my lifetime, I think.

1621
01:27:12,430 --> 01:27:16,690
'Cause we can actually, we're
able to make this happen

1622
01:27:16,690 --> 01:27:19,650
if we want to, if we can
change in these ways.

1623
01:27:19,650 --> 01:27:21,170
- Yeah, great thank you so much.

1624
01:27:21,170 --> 01:27:24,140
We are officially out of time now.

1625
01:27:24,140 --> 01:27:27,440
But I'm really grateful
to you for your lecture

1626
01:27:27,440 --> 01:27:29,560
for your book, especially.

1627
01:27:29,560 --> 01:27:32,420
it's made me rethink so many of the things

1628
01:27:32,420 --> 01:27:33,650
that I've taught in my classes

1629
01:27:33,650 --> 01:27:37,880
about African art in the western museums.

1630
01:27:37,880 --> 01:27:39,690
And I wanna thank everyone who attended

1631
01:27:39,690 --> 01:27:41,590
for their excellent questions.

1632
01:27:41,590 --> 01:27:43,790
And hopefully, if you are here in Vermont,

1633
01:27:43,790 --> 01:27:46,020
you'll attend some of
our in-person events.

1634
01:27:46,020 --> 01:27:47,480
And then tomorrow morning

1635
01:27:47,480 --> 01:27:51,450
will be Peju Layiwola's keynote lecture,

1636
01:27:51,450 --> 01:27:54,020
where she's going to pick
up some of these ideas

1637
01:27:54,020 --> 01:27:55,490
but take them in a very different

1638
01:27:55,490 --> 01:27:59,660
kind of direction towards restitution.

1639
01:27:59,660 --> 01:28:01,530
So thank you so much, Dan.

1640
01:28:01,530 --> 01:28:04,829
I really appreciate you joining us.

1641
01:28:04,829 --> 01:28:07,450
- (inaudible) Say hi,
to Peju for me as well.

1642
01:28:07,450 --> 01:28:09,646
- I will, okay.

1643
01:28:09,646 --> 01:28:10,479
- Bye.

1644
01:28:10,479 --> 01:28:11,312
- Bye.

1645
01:28:12,965 --> 01:28:13,798
- Bye.