The museum has my history: A Case for Artistic reparation

Author: Dawit Algerson

There is an irony I cannot ignore: I am writing this in English, a language that does not belong to me, shaped by the same colonial systems I am critiquing. That is not a disclaimer. It is, perhaps, the clearest illustration of the problem.

As a curator from he Global South, I have grown increasingly frustrated with the language that dominated contemporary discussions around decolonization. Museums speak of inclusion. Galleries speak of representation. Biennials speak of diversity. Yet beneath these well-intentioned terms, I often find the same underlying assumption: that the Global South must still explain itself in order to be understood.

The conversation around decolonisation has become widespread within the art world. Institutions are revisiting their collections, returning looted objects, and expanding visibility of artists from formerly colonised regions. These are important developments and long overdue. However, I am left wondering whether recognition alone is enough. If colonialism extracted not only objects but also histories, languages, knowledge systems, and cultural authority, can restitution alone repair the damage?

I want to be specific, because generalisation has its own violence. When I speak of colonialism’s cultural damage, I am speaking primarily from within Africa and the Middle East, my own geography of knowledge. I do not want to collapse Latin America, South Asia, and East Asia into a single narrative; their colonial histories, their losses, and their ongoing struggles are distinct and deserve their own voices. What I can speak to is the particular texture of extraction across Africa and the Arab world: the removal of archives, the suppression of languages, the rewriting of histories through foreign frameworks. This is where I stand, and I ask the reader to hold that specificity.

Across this geography, entire archives were removed. Cultural objects were taken. Languages were suppressed. Histories were rewritten through colonial perspectives. What remains is often fragmented, leaving contemporary generations to reconstruct identities from pieces scattered across continents.

Today, some of the most important cultural artefacts belonging to these societies remain housed in foreign institutions or private collections. The debate surrounding the Benin Bronzes has become one of the most visible examples but it is far from unique. The issue extends beyond a single collection or museum. It raises a larger ethical question: how can society fully understand itself when significant parts of its cultural memory exist elsewhere?

Yet the problem is not simply the location of these objects. The deeper issue is authors. Colonialism did not only remove artifacts. It removed the ability of communities to narrate themselves. The power to define culture, history, and value gradually shifted towards institutions with wealth, infrastructure, and global influence. Over time, these institutions became the primary authors of narratives that did not belong to them.

This legacy continues to shape the contemporary art world. Artists from Africa and the Arab world are often expected to translate themselves into languages, frameworks, and references that are legible to Western audiences. Curators are encouraged to provide context, simplify complexity, and make cultural specificity accessible. While these practices may be intended to foster understanding, they can also reinforce an unequal relationship in which one side is expected to explain while the other remains the default point of references.

For this reason, I believe the conversation must move beyond decolonisation and toward artistic reparation.

Artistic reparation is not simply the return of stolen objects. It is the recognition that centuries of extraction created structural imbalances that still exist today. Returning an artefact does not automatically rebuild archives, support local museums, train curators, strengthen cultural institutions, or restore historical confidence. Repair requires more than symbolic gestures. It requires investment.

If museums, foundations, art fairs, and cultural institutions acknowledge that they have benefited from systems shaped by colonial histories, then they must also ask what obligations follow from that acknowledgement. What would happen if resources were directed toward rebuilding local cultural infrastructures? What if funding prioritised long-term partnerships instead of temporary exhibitions? What if authority was shared rather than granted? What if institutions invested in helping communities tell their own stories instead of continually interpreting those stories on their behalf?

Germany’s return of the Benin Bronzes, accompanied by substantial funding for a new museum in Benin City, offered a glimpse of what artistic reparation might look like. It also exposed its limits. Disputes soon emerged over governance, ownership, and control. The lesson was revealing. Reparation is not simply a transfer of objects or money. It is a transfer of authority. The funding arrived, but authority remained contested.

The future of a more equitable art world cannot be built solely through representation. Representation without structural change risks becoming another form of management rather than transformation. What is needed is a commitment to repair: repair of memory, repair of institutions, repair of authorship, and repair of cultural agency.

The greatest theft of colonialism was not the removal of objects from their places of origin. It was the removal of authority from the people who created them. Until that authority is restored decolonisation remains incomplete.

All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.