Rethinking Relationships and Building Trust around African Collections

The project worked with heritage professionals, community members, researchers, artists and other stakeholders in Kenya, Nigeria and the UK to develop thinking about the future of the collections.

Supporting the thinking is a research process that involves stakeholders collaboratively developing questions about the collections and their provenance – how they came to be in each museum’s collection – that includes linking the objects to historical events and key moments in the history of collecting.

The project was initially facilitating visits by stakeholders to see each museum’s collections, as well as holding workshops in all three countries as a basis for equitable exchange that can contribute to the future care of the collections. Once the pandemic started, much of these exchanges moved online.

The project began by engage with issues of representation in the collections, identifying information that need updating and opening possibilities for stakeholders to work directly with the collections.