Together with Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, the Mondriaan Fund is organised a new edition of HERE: Heritage Reflections on Monday 10 November 2025. This edition focused on the theme of restitution.
Participant speakers were Amal Alhaag (curator & researcher), Raul Balai (visual artist & curator), Lizzy Bakker (Head of Exhibitions Naturalis), Marieke van Bommel (general director at Wereldmuseum), Max Caspers (Head of Collections Management at Naturalis), Dr. Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba (Curator of African Arts, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, United States), Camiel de Kom (Digital Heritage Coach at Colonial Collections Consortium), Sebastian Koudijzer (visual artist & theatre maker), Aram Lee (artist), Leandro Matthews Cascon (research fellow at NIAS), Wayne Modest (content director at Wereldmuseum), Paul Wolff Mitchell (researcher, Pressing Matter), Manuwi C. Tokai (artist and initiator of the memorial altar), CATPC artists Ced’art Tamasala, Matthieu Kasiama and Mbuku Kimpala, Paul Voogt (curator at the Mission Museum Steyl), and Cindy Zalm (Head of Realisation at Wereldmuseum).
Programme
Talk: “The Return of Balot”
Dr. Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba, Curator of African Arts at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in the USA, and CATPC artists Ced’art Tamasala, Matthieu Kasiama, and Mbuku Kimpala spoke about the loan of the Balot sculpture. In 2024, the sculpture temporarily returned to Congo as part of the Venice Art Biennale. What preceded this remarkable loan? What obstacles had to be overcome? What lessons learned do they want to share? And also: what are the next steps?
Breakout sessions & guided tours
After this discussion, there were several breakout sessions that explored the topic of restitution in more depth. For example: Where do you start with provenance research? What role do the involved communities play? What can artists contribute to restitution? And what can you do as a heritage professional within your museum? Visitors could also join guided tours at the Wereldmuseum.
Workshop Provenance Research in 5 Steps: How to Start Provenance Research
Both small and large heritage institutions have a responsibility to conduct thorough provenance research into their own collections. But how do you best get started, what research methods are available, and what guidelines can you consult? The Colonial Collections Consortium supports collection-managing institutions in provenance research by sharing knowledge, acting as a source of information, and offering stakeholders a network. In this session with the Colonial Collections Consortium, you will be guided and gain insight into the latest developments surrounding the Colonial Collections Data Hub. In addition, this session will explore how you can start asking critical questions within the context of your heritage institution, taking into account both smaller and larger heritage organisations and the diversity of collections.
Speakers: Cindy Zalm – Head of Realisation at the Wereldmuseum (moderator), Camiel de Kom – Digital Heritage Coach at the Colonial Collections Consortium & Leandro Matthews Cascon – Research fellow at NIAS.
Alternative forms of restitution, the role of artistic practices in restitution and colonial collections
When dealing with and researching collections of colonial origin, many institutions, governments and communities strive for restitution as a result. But what do you do with collections and objects if restitution is not yet possible or if you still have steps to take in the process? Are there other ways to redress injustice and work towards healing? In this break-out session, we explore alternative forms of restitution that go beyond the physical act alone. We explore how artistic practices and digital applications contribute to the decolonisation of our collections and institutions.
Speakers: Raul Balai – visual artist & curator (moderator), Amal Alhaag – Sustaining the Otherwise, Sebastian Koudijzer – visual artist & theatre maker, Aram Lee (artist)
Communities of origin at the center: What role do involved communities play in restitution?
This breakout session focuses on the role of the communities of origin involved in restitution. We will explore recent cases and focus on the impact of returns on source communities. What does restitution mean to them? What kind of impact do these projects have, and how do these communities envision the future? What responsibility do our heritage institutions have towards these communities when it comes to such processes?
Speakers: Ced’art Tamasala, Matthieu Kasiama, Mbuku Kimpala (CATPC)
Moderation: Annette Schmidt (conservator Afrika Wereldmuseum)
Community of origin unknown? What if the community of origin is unknown or restitution is not yet possible? How should you deal with such collections, and what responsibilities do you have as a heritage professional?
Many of our heritage institutions hold objects whose source communities are unknown, even though their colonial origins are clear. More and more institutions are conducting provenance research into (parts of) their collections, but in some cases, identifying the source community proves difficult. For scientific museums this is often the reality. What should be done in such cases, and what responsibilities lie with museums or heritage institutions? What if the community of origin does not wish to receive certain objects or ancestral remains? And how should museums approach these types of collections in the future?
Participants: Marieke van Bommel – General Director, Wereldmuseum, Paul Voogt – Curator, Missiemuseum Steyl, Endy Ezeluomba – Curator, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (USA), Max Caspers – Head of Collections Management Naturalis, Lizzy Bakker – Head of Exhibitions Naturalis
Tour: Unfinished pasts: return, keep, or...?
Increasingly, the question is being asked whether museums should return collections to their countries of origin. Politicians, activists and communities from former European colonies advocate returning objects to their countries of origin. Museums themselves are also asking critical questions: how did these objects end up in their collections? And who do they actually belong to? Paul Wolff Mitchell, researcher at Pressing Matter, will take you through the exhibition Unfinished Pasts.
Speaker: Paul Wolff Mitchell – Researcher, Pressing Matter
Tour: Memorial altar
Together with members of various communities, Manuwi C. Tokai created an altar to serve as a place of remembrance for the ancestors held in the museum’s collection. The immediate catalyst for this was a baby, believed to be of Surinamese Indigenous descent, currently kept in museum storage.
Manuwi C. Tokai initiated a request for the baby to be returned to the community. The Wereldmuseum supports this request and is working with the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science to facilitate the repatriation.
Speaker: Manuwi C. Tokai – Artist and Initiator of the Memorial Altar