“The work of cultural restitution must be about what we give up, not just what or how we give back,” writes Dan Hicks in response to Arts Council England’s new restitution guidelines for museums.
Dan Hicks
Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at Oxford University and Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum. His latest book is The Brutish Museums, Twitter @ProfDanHicks and Instagram @ProfDanHicks
The Risks That Lurk in Europe’s “Scramble for Decolonization”
As the global consensus on restitution passes the tipping point, some skepticism towards these sudden, improbable Damascene conversions towards restitution is probably justified.
Hew Locke Challenges Empire in Birmingham
The artist realized what he previously called an “impossible proposal,” building a ship around a public statue of Queen Victoria, where she’s joined by five smaller replicas of herself.
Unmasking a History of Colonial Violence in a German Museum
At Leipzig’s Grassi Museum, a Tanzanian-German artist collaboration is reimagining the removal of a plinth as sculptural gesture in its own right.