Objectives:
The AfricaMuseum Provenance Research Team operates through the PROCHE project (Provenance Research on the Ethnographic Collection), a federal science policy program implemented by the AfricaMuseum. The PROCHE project aims to provide transparent access to provenance information and works in partnership with Congolese institutions like the Institut des musées nationaux du Congo (IMNC).
Restitution Measures:
The team has achieved concrete results, as in June 2021, the ownership rights of almost 800 looted objects from the AfricaMuseum were transferred to the Congolese state. An inventory of 83,200 cultural objects managed by the AfricaMuseum from the DRC and more broadly Central Africa was transmitted to Congolese Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde in February 2022.
Framework Limitations:
The collections of the AfricaMuseum are the property of the federal state and therefore a decision on their ownership cannot be taken by the museum itself, but only by the Federal State, and they still haven’t been physically repatriated despite legal ownership.
