Under the first round of proposals in 2022, the German Lost Art Foundation approved around 1.6 million euros for nine research projects dealing with colonial contexts

The Ex­ec­u­tive Board of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg has now ap­proved nine re­search pro­pos­als in the area of “colo­nial con­texts” on the rec­om­men­da­tion of its fund­ing ad­vi­so­ry board un­der the first round of pro­pos­als in 2022, ap­prov­ing a to­tal of around 1.6 mil­lion eu­ros in project fund­ing.

The on­ly in­dige­nous so­ci­eties in Eu­rope – those sit­u­at­ed in the north­ern re­gions of Nor­way, Fin­land, Swe­den and the Ko­la Penin­su­la in Rus­sia – lost most of the ma­te­ri­al ev­i­dence of their cul­ture as a re­sult of op­pres­sion by the na­tion states. The most im­por­tant Sá­mi col­lec­tion out­side North­ern Eu­rope is cur­rent­ly to be found in the Mu­se­um Eu­ropäis­ch­er Kul­turen (MEK – Mu­se­um of Eu­ro­pean Cul­tures) in Berlin-Dahlem. This in­ven­to­ry is now to be sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly pro­cessed: as part of a project fund­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion and in close co­op­er­a­tion with Sá­mi part­ners, the MEK is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the ori­gins of some 1,000 ob­jects and pho­tographs.

In or­der to clar­i­fy how these cul­tur­al as­sets found their way in­to Ger­man col­lec­tions – from Scan­di­navia, East Africa and Chi­na, as well as hu­man re­mains from for­mer colo­nial re­gions – the Ex­ec­u­tive Board of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg has now ap­proved nine re­search pro­pos­als in the area of “colo­nial con­texts” on the rec­om­men­da­tion of its fund­ing ad­vi­so­ry board un­der the first round of pro­pos­als in 2022, ap­prov­ing a to­tal of around 1.6 mil­lion eu­ros in project fund­ing. Sev­en new projects were ap­plied for, while two ex­ist­ing projects are to be ex­tend­ed.

In ad­di­tion to the ques­tion of the ori­gin of ob­jects and hu­man re­mains, the fo­cus will al­so be on the role of colo­nial in­sti­tu­tions. The Deutsches In­sti­tut für tropis­che und sub­tropis­che Land­wirtschaft (DIT­SL – Ger­man In­sti­tute for Trop­i­cal and Sub­trop­i­cal Agri­cul­ture), for ex­am­ple, is not on­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing its col­lec­tion at the Witzen­hausen Mu­se­um, it is al­so look­ing in­to the his­to­ry of the for­mer colo­nial school in Witzen­hausen, which was a train­ing cen­tre for young men who were to con­tribute to build­ing an econ­o­my in the colonies. An­oth­er project sheds light on colo­nial col­lec­tions in art mu­se­ums and artists’ es­tates: the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cologne is re­search­ing the prove­nance of arte­facts found in the col­lec­tions of the Brücke artists Karl Schmidt-Rot­tluff, Emil Nolde, Erich Heck­el and Max Pech­stein, among oth­ers. The aim is to raise aware­ness of the fact that thou­sands of ob­jects of un­clear ori­gin from colo­nial con­texts are stored not on­ly in eth­no­log­i­cal mu­se­ums but al­so in art col­lec­tions – and too few ques­tions are asked.

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion (Deutsches Zen­trum Kul­turgutver­luste) in Magde­burg, found­ed on 1 Jan­uary 2015 by the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, the Län­der and the lead­ing mu­nic­i­pal as­so­ci­a­tions, is the cen­tral point of con­tact in Ger­many for ques­tions con­cern­ing un­law­ful­ly seized cul­tur­al prop­er­ty. The Foun­da­tion re­ceives in­sti­tu­tion­al fund­ing from the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Me­dia; this is al­so the source of fund­ing for its projects. The Foun­da­tion’s main fo­cus is on cul­tur­al as­sets seized un­der Na­tion­al So­cial­ism as a re­sult of per­se­cu­tion, es­pe­cial­ly Jew­ish prop­er­ty. Since Jan­uary 2019, when the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion was ex­pand­ed to in­clude a De­part­ment for Colo­nial Con­texts, it has al­so been pos­si­ble to ap­ply for fund­ing for projects that deal with cul­tur­al prop­er­ty and col­lec­tions orig­i­nat­ing from colo­nial con­texts. Since then, a to­tal of around 6 mil­lion eu­ros has been ap­proved for 50 projects in this area.

Pro­pos­als for longer-term projects can be sub­mit­ted by 1 Jan­uary and 1 June of each year; pro­pos­als for short-term projects can be sub­mit­ted at any time. All in­sti­tu­tions in Ger­many un­der pub­lic law that col­lect, pre­serve or re­search col­lec­tions from colo­nial con­texts are el­i­gi­ble to ap­ply. This in­cludes mu­se­ums, uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er re­search in­sti­tu­tions. Since 1 Jan­uary 2021, pro­pos­als have al­so been ac­cept­ed from in­sti­tu­tions that are recog­nised as non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions and have their reg­is­tered of­fice in Ger­many.