Working Paper 6/2024
Colonial contexts

Working paper is presented in Namibia

The study is presented in Windhoek on the subject of cultural goods and collections from Namibia in institutions in German-speaking countries.

The German Lost Art Foundation’s working paper Locating Namibian Cultural Heritage in Museums and Universities in German-Speaking Countries. A Finding Aid for Provenance Research is to be presented today, Tuesday, at the Goethe-Institut in Windhoek, Namibia.

The speakers at the event will be Dennis Schroeder (Goethe-Institut Namibia), Ndapewoshali Ndahafa Ilunga (Director of the Museums Association of Namibia), Prof. Dr. Larissa Förster (Head of the Department of Cultural Goods and Collections from Colonial Contexts at the German Lost Art Foundation) and Boyson Ngondo (Acting Director of the Directorate National Heritage and Culture Programme in the Ministry of Education, Culture and the Arts).

The study is the first collation of information from around 40 selected museums and universities in Germany, Switzerland and Austria on almost 19,000 objects, most of which found their way to these institutions as a result of colonisation by the German Reich; in most cases they are still held at these institutions today.

The publication is the product of a collaborative project undertaken by the Ministry of Education, Culture and the Arts in Namibia, the Museums Association of Namibia, the National Museum of Namibia, the University of Namibia and the German Lost Art Foundation.

Locating Namibian Cultural Heritage in Museums and Universities in German-Speaking Countries. A Finding Aid for Provenance Research was compiled by Larissa Förster, Gesa Grimme (Coordination Centre for Scientific University Collections in Germany) and Christoph Rippe (freelance provenance researcher) and is published in the series Working Paper Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste. The working paper is available free of charge on the publication platform of the Max Weber Foundation https://perspectivia.net at https://doi.org/10.25360/01-2024-00002

The working paper was previously presented in Berlin at the end of February 2024.