Transnational Restitution Movement
curated by Studio Rizoma and GROUP50:50
3 – 5 June 2022, Palermo
Atrio Biblioteca Comunale di Casa Professa
Complesso Monumentale di Santa Chiara
With the recent return of the Benin Bronzes by the two museums with the largest collections of African art in Europe, it has become evident: we are entering a new era of postcolonial debate. In this context, Studio Rizoma and GROUP50:50 invite artists, activists and thinkers from Europe and Africa to Palermo to set the foundations for a broad transnational restitution movement. In a series of lessons, concerts, screenings and interventions, we present and discuss artistic and political practices redefining African and European identities, exploring the links between cultural and natural heritage looting, and reframing transcontinental dialogue and cooperation.
Since the 1960s, a movement of globally connected artists, intellectuals and activists has been persistently campaigning for the restitution of African cultural artefacts, and human remains as part of the decolonisation strategies. After a long period of stagnation, the debate has accelerated in recent years, with examples of physical restitution such as the Behanzin treasures to the Republic of Benin or the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. While actual restitution will be decided at the highest diplomatic level and delayed for as long as possible, it will be up to artists and civil society to speed up and accompany this process. The time has come to follow those who have led the way to create a broad and transnational movement. How can these objects be returned in their symbolic, social and historical significance? How can restitution be linked to contemporary contexts of knowledge production, social interaction and global justice?
Once you leave the European perspective, skulls and skeletons become more than scientific entities, and masks become more than art objects. They are inhabited by ancestral spirits brutally removed from their habitat, locked away in forgotten collections and still haunting the European continent. With the restitution process, we must learn, in Europe and the former colonies, to dialogue about the long history of physical violence, economic exploitation and plunder, alienation, cultural appropriation and dislocation of these objects that produced meaning. What rituals can we invent to accompany the return of the objects? How can we reverse a process of alienation induced by hegemonic euro-centric thinking imposed by colonial violence?
The destabilisation of social structures through the expropriation of objects with cultural value or symbolic power enabled the exploitation of humans and nature. Modernist ideas of progress and the subsequent separation of so-called “advanced” and “primitive” societies, the imperative of infinite economic growth and the aggressive extractivism of natural resources annihilated any alternative cosmology that defined the relationship between humans and nature differently. Should the restitution movement also claim the restitution of natural resources, compensation and repayment of the ecological debt of the West? Who pays for the ongoing destruction of the ecology caused by the exploitation of natural resources? And would it not be better for humanity if alternative cosmologies could be restored?
Studio Rizoma and GROUP50:50 invite artists, activists and thinkers from Europe and Africa that represent the avant-garde of a transnational restitution movement to present and discuss their practices. After the first stage in Palermo, the “Transnational Restitution Movement” protagonists will travel on to Leipzig, Lubumbashi, Kinshasa and Berlin in 2022 and 2023. In each city, they involve local artists and activists in their reflections and artistic production to take the transnational restitution movement forward.
Curated by Patrick Mudekereza and Eva-Maria Bertschy with contributions by Giorgio Mega and Emmanuelle Spiesse (LAM, Les Afriques dans le monde, laboratoire CNRS)
Production management: Letizia Gullo, Giorgio Mega and Pamina Rottok
General management: Lorenzo Marsili and Marta Cillero
Set Design and production: Jesse Gagliardi
Technical direction and service: Sinergie Group
Video production and documentation: La Bandita Film
Institutional Relations: Patrizia Pozzo and Constanze Reuscher
Communication and Creative Direction: Izabela Anna Moren
Graphic Design: Ciao Ciao Studio
“Non è più tempo di negare” in Palermo is presented by the European Pavilion, an initiative by the European Cultural Foundation which aims to support and promote artistic projects that imagine desirable and sustainable futures for Europe. The two-year-program “The Time For Denial Is Over” is a project of GROUP50:50 (Basel-Lubumbashi), Studio Rizoma (Palermo), Centre d’Art Waza (Lubumbashi) and European Alternatives, in collaboration with PODIUM Esslingen, CTM Festival Berlin, euro-scene Leipzig, Kaserne Basel and Vorarlberger Landestheater.
