Alternative museum tours explore colonial loot, biased narratives
Al JazeeraLondon, England – “The South Sea Company did not trade in fish,” says Alice Procter, as she shows visitors around Queen’s House, a maritime museum in Greenwich, southeast London. “African heritage can’t just be in European private collections and museums,” he said during a speech in Burkina Faso, later appointing two experts, one of whom is Senegalese, to oversee the repatriation process. “The point about the Maqdala exhibition was to highlight the contentious provenance of the objects – and we decided to speak to the embassy about loaning these objects back because we need to be open and transparent about the collections.” Formed in 2016, the Benin Dialogue Group, a consortium of European museums, discuss how best to return the Benin Bronzes, antiquities looted in 1897 during a punitive British military expedition to crush the dissenting West African Kingdom of Benin, in present-day Nigeria. “What will is long-term loans, the construction of museums in Benin and increased cooperation between European museums and Africa to understand their collections better.” Back on the Queen’s House tour, visitors are forced to reflect on Britain’s colonial past.
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