Looking At Looted Art Again?
Demonstration

10am to 1pm
Schlossplatz/Lustgarten
Map

we invite you to join us and many others in demonstration against the opening of the”ethnological collections” in the so-called “Humboldt Forum.” Meeting point: Berlin Palace (Schlossplatz)
Speakers at the demonstration:
Mnyaka Sururu Mboro (activist, Berlin/Tanzania)
Israel Kanautjike (activist, Berlin/Namibia)
Gad Shiynyuy (activist Berlin/Cameroon) und Silvie Njobati (artist, Cameroon) Daniela
Zambrano (artist, Berlin/Peru)
and others

Colonialism has enriched Germany for centuries;
the Humboldt Forum is the unambiguous present
of Germany’s colonial past. The building, which
will now host Berlin’s Ethnological Museum and
Asian Art Museum with collections from Africa,
the Americas, Asia, Australia and Oceania, is the
reconstruction of the former Prussian palace
where Wilhelm II lived o Africa’s riches. His
grandfather, Wilhelm I and Otto von Bismarck,
held in 1884-85, not far from the Humboldt Forum,
the Berlin Conference, where European powers
and the United States decided on the the colonial
partitioning of the African continent, from which
Germany ocially claimed its colonial rule over
South West Africa, today Namibia.
This is just one of the many reasons why the
institution’s self-acclaimed restitution achievements
are baseless, as they have yet to begin!
As long as the inventories are not made public and
transparent, independent provenance research is
hampered, and knowledge production emanating
from the Humboldt Forum is made dubious.
Decolonial eorts have long challenged white
interpretive sovereignty over cultural heritage.
An appropriate response to these voices is
long overdue!

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