Germany and France have agreed to invest €2.1 million (£1.8 million) towards researching the origins of African artifacts in their respective national museum collections. This effort may pave the way for these objects to be returned to their countries of origin.
A fund, lasting for three years, was initiated in Berlin on Friday with annual contributions of €360,000 from each participating country. The fund’s purpose is to support research on objects from any region within sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on countries that were once colonized by France and Germany, such as Togo and Cameroon.
Dr. Julie Sissia, a researcher at the Franco-German research center Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin, announced that the funds will be administered by the center and are intended for experimentation.
“We are initiating the launch with inclusive criteria to allow for the participation of both small and large-scale projects,” stated the speaker. The sole stipulation was that the projects must be led by joint French and German teams from the academic and museum fields.
A discussion across Europe was sparked when French leader Emmanuel Macron declared in 2017 his commitment to returning certain cultural artifacts taken by colonial France from Africa.
France sent back 26 items to Benin in 2021, but has not made much progress in returning other stolen cultural pieces in recent times. The opposition has hindered the passing of a proposed law that would require the return of looted cultural property from abroad by the end of 2023.
The efforts for restitution in Germany have gained more traction recently. In November 2022, a German foundation provided funding for the creation of a comprehensive database of artifacts known as the Benin bronzes. One year later, the German foreign minister personally returned 21 bronzes to Nigeria.
The bronze items were initially stolen by the British army. However, managing objects that were previously taken from Germany’s own colonies presents a much bigger obstacle, both in terms of administration and diplomacy.
Cameroon was initially colonized by imperial Germany during the late 1800s. After the start of WWI, the country was invaded and split into administrative regions by Britain and France. Many cultural artifacts of Cameroonian origin were acquired by European museums during the time of German colonization.
Last June, a published project called The Atlas of Absences mapped out Cameroonian heritage objects that are currently being held by German museums. The project identified over 40,000 objects, with 8,871 of them being housed at the Linden Museum in Stuttgart.
Important pieces of Cameroonian culture include the Mandu Yenu, a vibrant throne decorated with pearls and shells. It was believed to have been gifted to German Emperor Wilhelm II by King Njoya of the Bamum kingdom in 1908 and is currently showcased at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.
German forces stole certain items, which were later sold to collections in France. One of these items was the Bangwa Queen, a wooden sculpture from Cameroon’s Grassfields region. It was captured in a photograph by Man Ray in 1934 and was exhibited at the now-defunct Musée Dapper in Paris until 2017.
“The start of the programme shows that cooperations – across borders, and between science and culture – make important projects like this one possible and are much needed in challenging times like these,” Germany’s federal commissioner for culture and media, Claudia Roth, said on the launch of the Franco-German project.
Source: theguardian.com
