The Critical Room: Art going astray

What do we make of the fact that so much art from other countries is in the museums of former colonial powers?

Vincent Negri will not be able to attend the panel, as originally planned. 

The unique documentary Dahomey deservedly won the Golden Bear at this year's Berlinale. The film follows the journey of 26 art treasures from a Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris, where they have been on display, back to Benin, where they once belonged to the kingdom of Dahomey. Diop uses the treasures, fictional elements and the voices of young Beninese people to help us understand the importance of the return of these artworks. After the screening, we invite you to a conversation about colonialism, preservation and representation.

Panelists

• Anawana Haloba is a Zambian-Norwegian visual artist, whose work has been acquired by the National Museum. She describes her artistic practice as an ongoing process of investigating the positions of different communities within varied political, social, economic and cultural contexts and frameworks of an ideological and post-colonial nature.
• Gro Birgit Ween is a professor in the Ethnography Group at the Museum of Cultural History and is an expert on cultural heritage management, world heritage and self-determination. Her projects consistently have a postcolonial approach.
• Moderator: Abirami Logendran is an artist educated at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. She works as a film critic for Klassekampen, film curator at Kunstnernes Hus and editor-in-chief of Norsk Kunstårbok.