Coffee Chats: Creating Space for Conversation Across TheMuseumsLab Alumni Network
Peer-led Coffee Chats bring together TheMuseumsLab Alumni across cohorts and continents. The first session offered time to reconnect, exchange experiences and discuss questions facing museums and heritage institutions.
During the MuseumsLab 2022 project session in Cape Town the team came up with a Project on the Dolls of Good Hope. The project was symbolic as it covered a topic that cuts across the countries represented in the group. The countries represented included those from all the 4 regions of the Africa continent (West, East, North and South). Germany was also present giving the team a trans-continental perspective.
On the Surface: Zooarchaeology, Photography and Provenance Research as a Collaborative Process | Alumni Project
In 2022, the On the Surface project was born out of an African-European museum exchange between three professionals who met during Module 2 of TheMuseumsLab in Berlin.
“Disrupting Restitution” was born out of a team project that started during TheMuseumsLab 2022 edition. "We came together due to our shared interest in and frustration with current debates and approaches to restitution. As a diverse group of African and European specialists and practitioners from various backgrounds (museum education, exhibitions, provenance research, policy, heritage management, etc.) we identified and discussed some of the main challenges that face those working on this contentious and complex topic."
Connecting Restitution Histories and African World Festivals | Alumni Project
In 1972, Nigerian archaeologist and head of Nigeria’s Federal Department of Antiquities, Ekpo Eyo sent a circular to several European embassies requesting “some” permanent loans of Benin Bronzes but even such a “modest loan request,” as written by Benedicte Savoy in her latest book Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat, “sparked panic among officials who feared a radical emptying of Western museums”.
TheMuseumsLab Alumni Network was formed during the Team Projects Phase of the 2022 edition of TheMuseumsLab. As dialogues and relationships developed during Module 2 hosted in Berlin, the need for a team project focused on supporting alumni activities was apparent.
