Projects

Within the framework of the GCE, each regional hub is shaping future projects in collaboration with the Humboldt Forum and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (SMB). Rather than emphasizing individual pilot initiatives, these efforts underscore how the hubs connect GCE delegates into a broader network that brings together cultural professionals, diverse communities, the Ethnological Museum, the Asian Art Museum, the Humboldt Forum, and other partner institutions. This collaborative model ensures that regional priorities are represented while fostering dialogue and exchange across perspectives, strengthening the GCE as an ongoing co-creative approach to museum practice.

The World Gathering on Rematriation, Repair, and Restitution is a global initiative of the Global Cultural Embassy to fundamentally reshape how cultural return is understood, practiced, and experienced. Moving beyond symbolic gestures and institutional frameworks alone, it centers the authority, knowledge, and agency of communities whose heritage has been displaced. Through a combination of artistic practice, critical dialogue, and collaborative research, the Gathering advances rematriation not only as return, but as the restoration of living relationships, cultural continuity, and self-determination.

The process begins with a 2026 convening in Mexico, where international participants will co-develop the conceptual, ethical, and operational foundations of the initiative. This work will lead to a major global Gathering in 2028 in Berlin—an open, public-facing event that will bring together artists, curators, scholars, and community leaders from across continents. Designed as both a working platform and a public forum, the 2028 Gathering will include presentations, artistic interventions, and an international call for papers, positioning it as a unique space where practice, policy, and imagination intersect.

At its core, the Gathering seeks to build new, long-term models of collaboration that move restitution from a reactive process to a shared, forward-looking practice—one that redefines the role of institutions, reactivates cultural knowledge, and opens pathways for more just and equitable futures.