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Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures (CCP, ECF) project

The Museums Association of Namibia (MAN) worked in collaboration with the National Museum of Namibia and the University of Namibia (UNAM) on the Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures (CCP, ECF) project, which started in 2019. The multi-faceted project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

This collaborative project sought to unlock the healing and creative potential of the colonial collections from Namibia held at the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin, Germany and the Ethnographic Collection at the NMN. It reconnects the collections with each other and with their communities, researchers and artists in Namibia.

Based on collaborative provenance research between Namibian and German scholars, cultural belongings and artefacts from the EM were returned to Namibia in May 2022 and put into dialogue with the historical collections of the NMN, forming the basis for training sessions in provenance research, conservation, documentation, digitisation, and curation.

As part of the project, staff of the NMN, scholars and students from UNAM, and staff of MAN facilitated workshops and engagements with heritage experts and researchers, community representatives, and artists to engage with the collections at the NMN and conducting fieldwork with digitised collections in heritage communities throughout the country.

The project aims to reactivate knowledge about cultural belongings and artefacts, to document immaterial cultural heritage and to provide a vital source of inspiration for artists and designers. The knowledge thus created, including oral histories and artworks, will be shared with the wider public in an online database, a publication, and in this museum, as well as in an exhibition at the NMN in Windhoek to be conceptualised in the second phase of the project.

By reconnecting stakeholders in Namibia with colonial collections from Berlin and Windhoek, the project seeks to engage with colonial trauma, spur new cultural production, and envision decolonial, creative futures.

Learn more about the different components of the project by clicking on the links below.

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