Repatriation within the arts
The return of artworks and cultural objects
Wednesday 7 November 2018 6.30 - 7.45pm
The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
£15, £9 concessions
Oceania
Join our panel of curators and artists as they examine the issues surrounding repatriation, restitution and the return of artworks and cultural objects.
How do Western museums and cultural organisations represent, store and exhibit indigenous artworks today? The subject of returning artworks to their origin state is one frequently debated in today’s art world, and one that comes with many questions and cultural debates. How should cultural institutions honour and nurture the cultural heritage of indigenous populations? Our panel explores the intricacies of colonial restitution and discusses whether museums need to rethink the display, function, and narrative of indigenous objects.
Our panel includes Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director and Curator at the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology (Cambridge), Jonathan Fine, Curator at the Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and artist Enotie Ogbebor. The discussion will be chaired by Jan Dalley, Arts Editor for The Financial Times.
£15, £9 concessions
Oceania
Guest speakers
Enotie Ogbebor was born in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria and is a prolific award winning artist and singer/songwriter. Regarded as an authority on Benin Court Art, his works are included in the globally acclaimed book Benin: Kings and Rituals edited by Barbara Plankensteiner. Ogbebor has a degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of Benin, Nigeria and set up Nosona studios, a fine art/digital art studio in Benin which has become a hub for training children and younger artists, and a space for visiting artists to work. The Smithsonian institute recently appointed the studio as a vendor organisation.
He has been appointed consultant/adviser on art and culture to the Edo State Government, Nigeria and is working closely with the Benin Dialogue group. He was recently invited to present a paper at Cambridge University SWICH conference on Benin Art; History, present and future. Enotie Ogbebor's works can be found in numerous private and public institutions across the world, most notably the British Museum.
Jonathan Fine is curator for the collections from West Africa, Cameroon, Gabon, and Namibia and speaker of the working group on provenance issues in the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin. He is curator of the exhibition Beyond Compare: Art From Africa in the Bode Museum (on view until May 2019) and the exhibitions Colonial Cameroon and The Benin Kingdom, in Berlin’s Humboldt Forum, which will open next year. His research focuses on art and politics in Cameroon during the 19th and 20th centuries and the history of ethnological collections from Nigeria and Namibia. Before studying African art history at Princeton University, he received his J.D. from Yale University, and he practiced as an attorney focusing on human rights and international commercial disputes.
Professor Nicholas Thomas has written extensively on cross-cultural encounters, empire and art in the Pacific, as well as on museum histories and futures. His books include Islanders: the Pacific in the age of empire (2010), which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize, and The Return of Curiosity: what museums are good for in the twenty-first century (2016). Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge since 2006, Thomas is co-curator of Oceania at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and of many other exhibitions, often involving collaboration with contemporary artists.
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