Discussion
Lives of Objects: Virtual Gathering #1

On Reorienting Restitution

Wed, 15.11.2023
4:00 PM GMT

Online

The first gathering will take stock of restitution from multiple African perspectives, looking at both historical and present-day work on restitution. Moderated by Sherry Davis, Lives of Objects: Online Gathering #1 brings together five speakers to discuss the diversity of African-led initiatives, such as Open Restitution Africa and the collective Disrupting & Reorienting Restitution (that inspired the title of this event), which are pushing restitution forward and shifting the narrative from Eurocentric to African-centred. Karen Ijumba, senior researcher of Open Restitution Africa and Desiree Dibasen !Nanuses, a case study researcher of this project, will be joined by Oluwatoyin Zainab Sogbesan, heritage architect, cultural historian and museologist, Juma Ondeng, Cultural Advisor of the Ministry of Gender, Culture, the Arts and Heritage of the Republic of Kenya, and Heba Abd El Gawad, an Indigenous heritage and museum researcher and curator, whose comics of the Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage project form the catalyst for the conversation. This event will set the tone for the series: exploring, reorienting and reclaiming the restitution narrative and process from multiple African perspectives.

 

Biographies

Desiree Dibasen !Nanuses is the founder and executive director for The Curatorial Institute and Yale University Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage Fellow on the Yale Director’s Forum and a consultant for a UK-based architecture firm as a decolonial specialist on a monument in Germany. She is also a researcher for Digital Heritage Africa’s Open Restitution Africa initiative. Her academic practice includes a role as course leader at Kingston University, London and a Ph.D. candidate (2020/23) in fine art curatorial practice piloting the curriculum in decolonial practice she designed as one of the outcomes from her doctoral degree. 

Heba Abd el Gawad is an Egyptian heritage and museum specialist, and research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology, University College of London who specialises in the history of Egyptian archaeology and Egyptian perceptions and representations of ancient Egypt. Along with Professor Alice Stevenson, she co-developed the AHRC funded project: ‘Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage: Views from Egypt’ and has led various curatorial roles in Egypt and the UK. She has been named one of the most influential 21 Egyptian women in 2021 for her community work in the heritage sector.

Juma Ondeng' has an MA Cultural Heritage and International Development at the University of East Anglia (UK). Currently working for the Ministry of Gender, Culture, the Arts and Heritage in Kenya as Advisor Culture. He is also one of the founder members of the International Inventories Programme – an international research and database project that investigates Kenyan objects held in museums and heritage institutions worldwide - which came into being in 2018. The database so far has slightly over 33,000 objects from 32 institutions in Europe and North America. He was also part of the curatorial team of the Invisible Inventories Exhibition: questioning Kenyan Collections in Western Museums; an international exhibition held in three cities of Nairobi Kenya, Cologne and Frankfurt Germany.

Karen Byera Ijumba has worked at the intersection of research, cultural heritage, creativity and digital knowledge management for over 10 years. She holds an LLB and BA (Hons) in heritage and public culture from UCT, and an MA in arts and culture management from Wits. She enjoys encountering different ways of being, looking at things as puzzles and maps, and thinking through how bits come together under one nuanced conceptual umbrella. She is currently the senior researcher at Open Restitution Africa.

Oluwatoyin Sogbesan is an architect, cultural historian, art and heritage specialist, and museologist. She is the founder of Àsà Heritage Africa, a non-governmental organisation focused on heritage identification, documentation and preservation of African cultural heritage. She is a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and the Architecture and Urbanism Research Hub domiciled at the University of Lagos. She is an African Museology fellow at the Smithsonian Institute. 

Lives of Objects: Virtual Gatherings Curator
Sofia Lovegrove is a Portuguese-British independent researcher, curator, and heritage professional based in the Netherlands. Her research lies at the intersection of critical heritage and memory studies, with a focus on the colonial past, the role of representation in engendering narratives of belonging, and decolonial and reparative practices. She currently works at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, where she focuses on the topics of multiperspectivity, slavery past,colonial heritage and international cooperation. She is an alumni of TheMuseumsLab 2022 and a founding member of the collective Disrupting & Reorienting Restitution.

Lives of Objects: Virtual Gatherings Moderator
Sherry Davis is an award-winning musician, filmmaker and curator with a passion for utilising the arts to inspire social justice. Her 2022 multi-disciplinary arts project Ode to the Ancestors, commemorates the Black contribution to conservation and archaeology in East Africa. An exhibition of photographic archives that celebrates Kenyan heritage professionals from in and around the colonial period is on display at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in the UK until 3rd December 2023, and is touring Kenya with the National Museums of Kenya.