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Jim Chuchu is an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans music, film, photography, and the visual arts. Chuchu's artistic journey is marked by the exploration of identity, culture, and the complexities of the African experience. In 2012, Chuchu co-founded The Nest Collective, serving as co-director until 2021. Concurrently, he co-founded HEVA in 2015, a fund investing in East Africa's creative economy, which has since invested more than $3 million in creative businesses. Chuchu's involvement with the International Inventories Programme (2018-2021) marked another transformative phase in his career. This project, exploring the presence of Kenyan cultural objects in global institutions, led to a deepening of his understanding of the historical injustices that form part of Kenya’s colonial history, and the ongoing systemic challenges faced by Black individuals globally. The project catalogued an inventory of more than 32,000 objects and engaged various publics on urgent debates about object movement and colonial history. His work on this project culminated in his selection as a TED Fellow in 2021, where he delivered the talk: Why are stolen African artefacts still in Western museums? Chuchu's current projects reflect his continued exploration of diverse mediums and themes. He currently serves as Creative Director for African in the Anthropocene, a multimedia project examining how communities across Africa experience and respond to climate change. He is also co-producing Fight for Food, a documentary exploring food production in Kenya, while developing new experimental design work and his second feature film project.
Affiliation(s): The Nest Collective, HEVA, Invisible Inventories Programme
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Dr Njoki Ngumi is a writer and feminist thinker who has held positions in private and public healthcare sectors in Kenya. She is now a member of the Nest, a Kenyan multidisciplinary collective of artists, builders and makers, and the coordinator of learning and development for Africa's first creative economy catalyst fund, HEVA. She takes a special interest in the circumstances and holistic outcomes of youth, women and minorities. She also leads and participates actively in policy making and strategy, media analyses and debates, public education and dialogue, groundwork, pilots and practical interventions across sectors and arenas to make socioeconomic equality and advancement for them a reality.
Affiliation(s): The Nest Collective, HEVA, Invisible Inventories Programme
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Published Work: Open Restitution Africa Webinar with Dr Njoki Ngumi, vol. 1, 4 vols, Restitution Dialogues, 2020
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El Hadji Malick Ndiaye holds a doctorate in Art History from Université Rennes II. He is also a graduate of the National Institute of Heritage (Paris) and is a former fellow of the National Institute of Art History (Paris). He is a member of the Orientation Committee of Dak’art 2018 and directed its Commission of Encounters and exchanges. He teaches History of Art and Cultural Heritage, collaborates with several journals and participates in various international scientific activities. As a theoretician and curator, his publications deal with modern / contemporary art and global history, cultural policies and African museum institutions.
Affiliation(s): Dakar University Cheikh Anta Diop, Théodore Monod Museum of African Art, International Council of Museums (ICOM) Senegal
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Published Work: Musée, Colonisation, et Restitution (The Museum, Colonization, and Restitution)
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Princess Marilyn Douala Manga Bell, the great-granddaughter of King Rudolf Douala Manga Bell, executed by German colonial powers in 1910, is deeply engaged in shaping the emerging citizenship of Cameroon, a country not yet 140 years old. She co-founded doual'art in 1991, a contemporary art center designed as a research-action laboratory to explore art's role in societal change and the formation of Cameroonian identity. With a focus on German colonial history in Cameroon, she works on collective memory projects, artifact restitution with the Hamburg Museum, and reimagining heritage and museum roles in Cameroon. She holds a DESS in Socio-Economics of Development from the University of Paris-Nanterre and is self-taught in art.
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Peju Layiwola is a visual artist and art historian with an active studio practice, as well as a strong commitment to research. She has had several art exhibitions locally and internationally. Her most recent travelling exhibition and edited book, entitled Benin1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question, is an artistic exploration of the Benin/British encounter of 1897. She has published several articles on the visual culture of Nigeria. Presently, she is associate professor and head of the Department of Creative Arts at the University of Lagos, Nigeria where she teaches art history. She follows in the footsteps of her mother, Princess Elizabeth Olowu, daughter of HRM, Oba Akenzua II of Benin, in a career in art, adding art history to her intellectual portfolio during her graduate studies.
Affiliation(s): University of Lagos
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Published Work: Making Meaning from a Fragmented Past: 1897 and the Creative Process
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Emery Effiboley is an art historian with more than a decade-long experience in African arts. As an A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow, he spent two years (2014-2016) at the Centre for the Creative Arts of Africa (University of the Witwatersrand) in South Africa. He is currently Assistant Professor at Université d’Abomey-Calavi, where he teaches at the undergraduate level. He has also authored several articles and book chapters on African arts from an African perspective.
Affiliation(s): University of Abomey-Calavi, University of the Witwatersrand
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Published Work: Reflections on the Issue of Repatriation of Looted and Illegally Acquired African Cultural Objects in Western Museums
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Felwine Sarr, together with Benedicte Savoy, developed the groundbreaking report “The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics” 2018. Felwine Sarr is a humanist, philosopher, economist, and musician and the Anne-Marie Bryan Chair in French and Francophone Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Afrotopia (University of Minnessota Press, 2019, tr. by Drew S. Burk). Sarr taught at the University of Gaston-Berger in Saint Louis, Senegal, where he was previously dean of its Economics and Management department. His research focuses on economic policies, the development economy, econometrics, epistemology, and the history of religious ideas.
Affiliation(s): Duke University, Gaston Berger University
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Published Work: The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics
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Vicensia Shule is a seasoned creative producer with over 20 years of global experience in film, theatre, and online content. Her current role as a Senior Culture Officer at the African Union Commission places her at the forefront of vital heritage restitution efforts. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, bringing her wealth of knowledge to academic circles. Vicensia's diverse career spans over 30 academic publications and roles as a consultant, campaign strategist, and analyst in civil service, civil societies, public and private sectors. Her two decades of work include capacity enhancement training in various fields at local, national, regional, and international levels. She has served on boards of significant institutions worldwide.
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Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, PhD is a curator, author and biotechnologist, currently serving as Director and chief curator of Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) Berlin, Germany. He founded SAVVY Contemporary in 2009, where he served as the artistic director until 2022. He was the artistic director of Sonsbeek20-24, Arnhem, Netherlands, as well as the 12th and 13th editions of the Bamako Encounters - African Biennale of Photography, Mali. He was guest curator for the Dak’Art biennale in Dakar, Senegal, 2018 and was the Curator-at-large for Documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany in 2017. He curated the Finland Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019, together with the Miracle Workers Collective. He is professor in the Spatial Strategies MA program at the Weissensee Academy of Art in Berlin.
Affiliation(s): SAVVY Contemporary, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Weissensee Academy of Art
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Published Work: An Ongoing-Offcoming Tale: Ruminations on Art, Culture, Politics and Us/Others
