The German Lost Art Foundation has produced several publications and organised events on the subject of Cultural Goods and Collections from Colonial Contexts: these are available for viewing and listening to in the documentation section.
The Help Desk offers advice and assistance to victims of the Nazi regime and their descendants on questions relating to Nazi theft of cultural property. Serving as a central and initial low-threshold point of contact in Germany, it is aimed in particular at people whose place of residence is outside Germany and who are unfamiliar with German procedures, especially in connection with cultural federalism. The Help Desk seeks to provide support in taking initial steps as well as providing further contacts and information. We will also be happy to help initiate discussions with museums and other institutions.
German Lost Art Foundation, Branch Office
Dr. Susanne Meyer-Abich Head of Help Desk
The German Lost Art Foundation has published a number of papers on the subject of cultural goods and collections from colonial contexts. For example, several publications on the debate surrounding returns and colonial violence in Africa and Oceania have appeared in the series “Working Paper Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste”: In addition, one issue of the periodical “Provenance & Research” [2/2020] is dedicated to provenance research on cultural goods and collections from colonial contexts. It is also available as an e-book in English. Furthermore the German Lost Art Foundation has published the fourth volume of the series "Provenire" which adresses the long debate about the return of cultural property and ancestral remains to former colonial territories.
German Lost Art Foundation
The “Working Paper” series
Here you will also find publications relating to the debate on return and on the subject of colonial violence in Africa and Oceania.
Volume 4 of the series “Provenire” addresses the long debate about the return of cultural property and ancestral remains to former colonial territories.
This offers a practical introduction to provenance research on human remains from colonial contexts. It focuses on German institutions and includes an appendix outlining the situation in Austria. The main target groups are anthropological, anatomical and medical-historical collections of human remains held at universities, as well as those at natural history museums, ethnological museums, and multi-disciplinary museums. The guideline focuses on an interdisciplinary approach and a combination of methodologies. It contains detailed notes on the historical and anthropological methods used in provenance research as well as on the documentation of research findings. The transcultural and transnational dimensions of provenance research are also discussed.
Events
In 2021, the Foundation held an international conference on “The Long History of Claims for the Return of Cultural Heritage from Colonial Contexts”, which looked at how the restitution debate emerged. The conference is fully documented and a transcript is to be published, too. Furthermore the foundation has published a book on the conference.
In addition, the series Kolloquium Provenienzforschung organised by the Foundation regularly features contributions from the field of cultural goods and collections from colonial contexts. These have included discussion events dedicated to the subject of colonial violence against the people of Papua New Guinea to mark the publication of the book “Das Prachtboot” by historian Götz Aly, for example, as well as on the challenges of digital provenance research and the possibilities of artistic provenance research on human remains.
Overview of Exhibitions
Here you will find a list of exhibitions that have come to the attention of the Foundation which relate to the subject of cultural property losses and seizures in the various historical contexts.