We are talking about people here
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| Free admission, online event |
| English, German |
| Online event |
| Part of: 99 Questions |
How and why did human remains end up in museums? What would a respectful treatment of them look like?
Museums and collections contain so-called human remains. However, these objects on display are people – people who have been removed from their original resting places. This raises questions: How and why did human remains end up in museums? What could be considered a respectful handling of these remains? And who determines this?
These questions will make up the central point of discussion during the third event of our 99 Questions series. Together with our guests, we will also take a look at other museums and at how they treat human remains. What would cooperation between descendants, civil society and political actors look like? And how would one carry out the repatriation of these human remains in a respectful way?
Moderation
Prasanna Oommen
Podium
Amber Aranui (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) is project lead for Ngākahu – National Repatriation Project, which supports New Zealand museums and iwi (tribal groups) in the return of ancestral remains held in museum collections. She is a founding member and former chair of the New Zealand Repatriation Research Network, set up to assist repatriation researchers to work collaboratively with the aim of proactively returning ancestral remains back to iwi, hapū and other communities around the world. Amber has been the researcher for the Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Programme for over 11 years. Over the last year, she has worked to develop a national policy on repatriation for the New Zealand museum sector. She is also working with her own iwi on repatriation initiatives relating to the return of taonga (objects of cultural significance).
Ciraj Rassool is Senior Professor of History at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa, where he also teaches Museum and Heritage Studies and Curatorship. Furthermore, he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the study of the Physical Anthropology Collection Felix von Luschan at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and a Research Associate of the Global South Studies Centre at the University of Cologne. Among his latest publications are The Politics of Heritage in Africa: Economies, Histories and Infrastructures (New York 2015), co-edited with Derek Peterson and Kodzo Gavua; Unsettled History: Making South African Public Pasts (Ann Arbor, 2017), written with Leslie Witz and Gary Minkley; and Missing and Missed: Subject, Politics, Memorialisation(published as Kronos: southern african histories, 44, 2018), co-edited with Nicky Rousseau and Riedwaan Moosage. He served on the boards of the District Six Museum, Iziko Museums of South Africa and the South African Heritage Resources Agency. He was also a member of the Human Remains Advisory Committee of the Minister of Arts and Culture. Ciraj Rassool has previously chaired the Scientific Committee of the International Council of African Museums (AFRICOM).
Bernhard Heeb is a prehistoric archaeologist specializing in the study of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in Southeastern Europe. In addition to the Trojan Antiquities Collection and the Bronze Age Collection at the Museum of Pre- and Early History of the National Museums in Berlin, he has also been in charge of the anthropological collection there since 2014. In this context, he was able to carry out a provenance project between 2017 and 2020 to research human remains from the former colony of German East Africa. Currently, a comparable project is being prepared for the human remains from Togo and Cameroon. It is scheduled to begin before the end of 2021.
Prasanna Oommen has been working for 20 years as a public relations officer, moderator, and author in the fields of Politics, Civil Society, Culture, Education, Digitization and Media. She was the press spokeswoman for various institutions and companies in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hessen and is a former board member and active member of Neue Deutsche Medienmacher e. V. Between 2019 and 2020 she has been a member of the Expert Committee appointed by the NRW state government as part of the Ruhr Conference. Prasanna Oommen is a trained classical dancer (Cologne/Bangalore) and has worked for many years in arts education for children and adults in Cologne and Bonn.
This is the last 99 Questions event before the summer break. To stay informed about what will happen next in autumn, subscribe to our newsletter.
