Navigating looted artefacts
A post-colonial perspective from Black Land, Red Land - Restitute

In December 2023, the interdisciplinary festival Black Land, Red Land - Restitute took place in Berlin. The festival centred around the specific Egyptian artefacts of the bust of Nefertiti at the Neues Museum in Berlin and a statue of Sekhmet from the Museo Egizio in Turin critically and interdisciplinary analysed the meaning of a cultural artefact, the notion of restitution and the role of museums as institutions.

The festival, unfolding over four days across various venues in Berlin, including Kunstquartier Bethanien and Silent Green, was funded by Berlin’s Senate Department for Culture and Community and was initiated by Black Land e.V. Founded in February 2023 by Elena Sinanina and Yara Mekawei, the organisation has a twofold mission: to interrogate the roles of cultural institutions within broader political and cultural discourses and to foster intercultural dialogue aimed at redefining the meanings associated with restitution (Black Land 2024). Black Land e.V. expanded its scope with the festival, symbolically named “Black Land” to signify ancient Egypt’s fertile territory and “Red Land” to symbolise the desert, where Sekhmet’s mythological origins lie.

A central part of the festival consisted of the artistic performances of Yara Mekawei, Hani Mojtahedy, Cevdet Erek, Attila Csihar, and Houaida in Künstquartier Betanien in Kreuzberg. To Sinanina, Art is essential when dealing with history, which cultural heritage is part of. Art becomes a way to explore and open new dimensions and dialogue with an artefact, and through Art’s new perspectives, there are new avenues for challenging and questioning the dominant Western institutional narrative surrounding cultural artefacts.

Yara Mekawei, a Sufi sonic music artist, has dedicated her work to preserving the essence of ancient wisdom and using it to “evocate sound bridging past and present”. She has been researching and using sonic music to read deeper into the sacred Sufi book of the Book of the Dead for years. Part of the Sufi philosophy is essential to her cultural identity, and it is the custodian of Egyptian heritage. To her, sonic music can explore sacred artefacts’ godly and spiritual nature where words cannot.

What rendered the artists’ performances peculiar was the 3D print of a statue of Sekhmet from the Turin Museum. Through the 3D print of Sekhmet, Elena went through a journey of exploration which enabled her to understand an artefact beyond its specific material nature. It stood on a veil of sand in front of the artists performing. As Elena says:
“In Western Egyptology, there’s a tendency to classify Sekhmet as less valuable compared to Nefertiti, often deemed unique. However, the truth is there are many Sekhmets. Despite the many Sekhmets we find across the globe, each Sekhmet is unique. Every statue bears inscriptions detailing its origins, history, and how it should be revered – much like understanding a person.” (E. Sinanina, personal communication, 9th January 2024)

In the keynote speech, Dr. Fazil Moradi, who is currently a visiting associate professor at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, discussed what he calls “Catastrophic Art.” The words art and culture, he said, came to take on different meanings and roles during the rise of imperial colonialism in the 19th century. The expansion of imperial powers was closely intertwined with the promotion of art and culture, serving as technologies to establish and reinforce the myth of “civilisation” and, at the same time, colonial dominance. This imperial expansion meant the destruction of human collectives and life-forms and the plunder of art, culture and heritages. These acts of destruction, as Dr. Moradi shows in his publication entitled Catastrophic Art, materialised in murder of knowledge or “epistemicide,” including the shipping, classification, and exhibition of these plunder heritages in Museum in imperial metropoles such as the British Museum, Louvre in Paris or Pergamon and the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. Dr. Moradi emphasised that while the restitution of cultural artefacts is an urgent quest for justice as tangled with memory, the current efforts fall short of addressing the profound destruction and loss of knowledge, histories and humanity of the targeted people and their spiritual life-world. Instead, these actions are driven by political and economic calculations, perpetuating violence rooted in colonialism.

Another festival’s main point was that museums are places of power, where truth is made and unjust power structures are sustained. To Dr. Monica Hanna, Egyptologist and Dean at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport in Egypt, Western narratives of Ancient Egypt, often preserved in museums, serve to validate Western modernity and imperialism. According to her, museums are not a Western invention. But with the West, museums became a form of Orientalism, through which imperial powers, by displaying objects from Egypt, for example, would create a process of othering that would support their imperial plans and objects in Western Museums become hostages held by museums to keep the cultural power over non-European. Nefertiti, isolated in a museum display, embodies Western perceptions of the exotic and sublime, divorced from her historical context and contested social biography.

It is also interesting to notice the absence of key institutions like the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, although invited to join the discussions, underscores ongoing challenges in confronting colonial legacies. According to Sinanina, their avoidance of dialogue represents a form of violence perpetuating unequal colonial structures.

The festival also brought forward legal dimensions surrounding restitution and the possibility of putting forward an alternative, more just restitution paradigm through law. Sarah Imani, a legal scholar and advisor, refers to a shadow report she contributed to on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, shedding light on racism and colonialist patterns underlying cultural restitution, submitted to the UN in 2023 by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). ECCHR, established in 2007, safeguards and promotes principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, advocating for those affected by colonial-era injustices.

Imani emphasised the need to move beyond the interstate relationship between communities and post-colonial states when specifically addressing the restitution of human remains. Advocating for a human rights lens rather than an ownership framework, Imani suggests applying laws regarding human dignity, such as Art.1 of the German constitution, to human remains and their restitution. She highlighted Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which recognises everyone’s right to participate in cultural life and enjoy the benefits of scientific and artistic progress.

Overall, Black Land Red Land - Restitute offered a space for dialogue and action, sparking discussions on the complexities of cultural heritage, museums and restitution.