Should museums return artefacts to their country of origin?
Museen zeigen Werke aus aller Herren Länder. Manche sind Leihgaben oder Schenkungen großzügiger Mäzene. Andere sind koloniales Beutegut, das von seinen früheren Besitzern nun zurückgefordert wird. Sollten Museen solche Exponate an deren Ursprungsländer zurückgeben?
YES “A new generation of curators believes museums must care for people more than objects” Dan Hicks
Making returns on a case-bycase basis is already a normal and uncontentious part of the operation of European and North American museums in cases of Holocaust spoliation and indigenous ancestral human remains. The current question is whether museums can continue to rule out under any circumstances the return of cultural objects to African claimants and others from whom objects were taken under colonialism.
One example is the case of the Benin Bronzes — which I address in my book The Brutish Museums — where objects are starting to be returned through the Legacy Restoration Trust. Restitution does not mean emptying out Western museums or shutting them down. It means being open to giving back objects when asked. In the UK, most disputed objects are held by universities, local authorities or museum trusts, where the legal restrictions that apply to national museums are not relevant. And for Nazi loot and human remains, the law was changed for national museums to allow returns. So why not for sacred or royal cultural objects?
The ethics of curatorship require that we be fully transparent about what is held in museums. And although the Washington principles of 1998 apply to the unique historical circumstances of the Holocaust, they establish a key principle: that the responsibility for knowing whether there’s a looted object in a collection lies with the institution not the claimant.
Caring for collections begins with understanding them and sharing knowledge about them — including with the stakeholders, communities and audiences who are demanding returns. Return is a demand-led process: giving back on a case-by-case basis.
Increasingly, in world culture museums, there is a new generation of curators who believe museums must care for people more than objects. Our sector is having to undo a set of outdated colonial attitudes, myths and, in some cases, legal restraints, which remain from very different times. Time’s up for the refusal to return cultural property under any circumstances.
NO “History is about the movement of people and things, and they don’t stay static in one place” Dominic Selwood
In the current climate, there’s a tendency to regard museums as imperial trophy cabinets. That’s misunderstanding their origin and purpose. Museums come from the Enlightenment and the age of reason, not from the age of empire.
There are, of course, disputed objects, but to focus on one or two controversial objects, such as the Elgin Marbles or the Benin Bronzes, distorts the fact that there are actually very, very few “imperial” objects among millions of museum artefacts. The vast majority of objects were purchased, donated, came from archaeological digs or were acquired in other legitimate ways.
History is about the movement of people and things, and they don’t stay static in one place. A huge amount of British culture is held abroad. There’s an incredible collection of Beatles memorabilia on display just outside Tokyo.
The world’s earliest complete Latin Bible, the Codex Amiatinus, was created in Anglo-saxon England but has been held in Italy for a thousand years. It doesn’t have to be in Britain just because it was created here.
That’s misunderstanding the life of objects and their stories as they travel around the world. Through the Benin Bronzes, for example, we learn about British imperial politics in Africa, and African culture at the time. This allows us to understand the full history, which is honest to the reality.
It’s not all about returns. Loans are a big part of the mandate of all major museums, especially in the UK, where there are legal restrictions on returns. Restitution is a kind of illiberal cultural nationalism. It’s nationalist to say that culture has a passport or domicile. Culture is global and always has been.
Objects are not hostages in museums. They are ambassadors for their countries. The Elgin Marbles have inspired millions of people to fall in love with Greek sculpture and learn about Greek civilization.
In our world of Covid and climate change, we shouldn’t be flying across the planet to see things. Museums provide a responsible way to enjoy global culture.