We are happy to announce that the catalogue of the project, in the form of a magazine, is just off the press!
Published in English and in German by iwalewabooks (Bayreuth/Johannesburg) and Kwani (Nairobi), the contributions from IIP members and Kenyan museum professionals and practitioners critically reflect museum and restitution politics but also the limits of the cooperation between African and Europeans museums. Besides conversations, essays and texts that accompany the artworks in the exhibition with the same title, the publication also contains a number of object biographies written by different authors that provide unique perspectives on the very same objects.
The zine supports the decolonising approach of the project by providing perspectives yet underrepresented in international discussions and aims to contribute to the debate on colonial histories that are inscribed in collections and museums.
IIP will make a selection of articles from the Invisible Inventories Zine available digitally. You can find them here:
The discussion on the restitution of African cultural heritage has largely been dominated by efforts and campaigns to return cultural artefacts to their countries and communities of origin. Chao Tayiana wides the perspective and tries to grapple with the loss of historical and archival documents during colonialism, that makes it hard for Kenyan researchers to understand their history even today.
Read MoreThe Nest Collective analyze both the story told by the collected data and also the problems associated to it.
Read MoreMarian Nur Goni and Sam Hopkins introduce the Invisible Inventories Zine. This is the first in a series of articles from the Zine that will be published online.
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