Date: 8 February 2026
Time: 3 PM – 5 PM
Location: OBA Oosterdok (Public Library Amsterdam), Theatre
Organisation: Our HERitage, OBA
Language: Dutch
On 8 February, the photo exposition Her Love, Her Story will be opened at the OBA Amsterdam. The exposition was created by the project Our HERitage and presents 11 portraits of Caribbean foremothers. Their stories show how love, family and identity shape new generations. The exposition will be at the photo gallery of the OBA from 3 February until 9 March.
The opening programme starts Sunday 8 February in the Theatre on the 7th floor, with welcoming words by Our HERitage-founder Fausia S. Abdul. Keynote speaker is prof. Valika Smeulders (Rijksmuseum & Colonial Collections Consortium). Additionally, speakers include authors Liesbeth Smit and Susi & Simba Mosis and participants Tiarra Simon and Robby Kibbelaar. The afteroon will be closed with an intense performance of Reframing HERstory Art Foundation, about slavery and being women.
Workshop: Relational heritage spacesDate: 27 January 2026
Time: 10 AM – 17 PM
Location: Oude Boteringestraat 36, Faculty of Religion Studies, University of Groningen
Organisation: Netherlands Chapter of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies
Language: English
On 27 January 2026, the Netherlands Chapter of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies is hosting their first workshop. The theme of this workshop is relationality in heritage spaces. The programme includes keynote lectures by Hester Dibbits (Reinwardt Academy) and Cindy Zalm (Wereldmuseum & Colonial Collections Consortium). Restitution is one of the central topics for this meeting.
Provenance research blog #4 out nowIn this blog series, the Colonial Collections Consortium presents a historical object or collection from a colonial context or situation, currently (or until recently) stored in a museum in the Netherlands that has been the focus of provenance research. Our latest blog focuses on the Dubois collection, until recently part of the collection of Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden.
The Dubois collection consists of approximately 28,000 fossil specimens gathered by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois in the former Dutch East Indies. Over time, they acquired cultural and political significance, both for Indonesia and the Netherlands, and have been at the centre of restitution debates for several decades.
As you will read in this blog, the nature of the collection, the layered meanings it has acquired throughout the years and the decades-long discussions about its rightful ownership made the provenance research particularly complex and multidisciplinary.
Provenance research blog #4
In the blog series of the Consortium Colonial Collections, we present a historical object or collection from a former colonial context or situation, currently (or until recently) stored in a museum in the Netherlands that has been the focus of provenance research. Each blog explains the steps taken by the respective museum or external provenance researcher to carry out the research. Which stories lie behind the object and what can they tell us about the Dutch colonial past?
In focus this time: the Dubois collection.
About the collection
The Dubois collection was until recently part of the Dutch state collection and managed by Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. It consists of approximately 28,000 fossil specimens gathered by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois (1858-1940) in the former Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia). Most of the fossils were excavated on the instruction of Dubois in Java and Sumatra between 1888 and 1900. They play an important role in the knowledge of and scientific debate on the evolution of humans and early hominins. Dubois wanted to prove Darwin’s theory of evolution by seeking the ‘missing link’ between apes and humans (Homo sapiens). The key pieces in the Dubois collection are fossils of Pithecanthropus erectus (popularly known as Java man, and later reclassified scientifically as Homo erectus), namely a femur, a skullcap and a molar.
Over time, the fossils – and especially the Java Man – acquired cultural and political significance, both for Indonesia and the Netherlands, and have been at the centre of restitution debates for several decades. Unlike the items addressed in previous blogs, the collection addressed here consists of a natural history collection, rather than cultural objects or belongings. However, the research carried out shows that this division is not always accurate nor constructive. As we will see in this blog, the nature of the collection, the layered meanings it has acquired throughout the years and the decades-long discussions about its rightful ownership made the provenance research particularly complex and multidisciplinary.
The restitution request
Ever since the fossils were excavated, there has been disagreement about the Dubois collection, both regarding its scientific value and its ownership. In 2022, the Republic of Indonesia submitted an official application for the collection’s restitution after which the Dutch State Secretary for Culture requested the Colonial Collections Committee to provide advice on this request. A central question was whether a natural history collection was eligible for return under the Dutch restitution policy that focusses primally on cultural objects and, if so, on which grounds. Here, the Colonial Collections Committee followed the Explanatory Memorandum (2014) of the Dutch Heritage Law (Erfgoedwet) that makes explicit that “geological and biological specimens are also included in the definition [of cultural objects]” (‘Ook geologische en biologische specimina tot het begrip [cultuurgoed] behoren’) (see Kamerstuk II 2014/15, 34109, nr. 3, page 60).
To be able to advise to the State Secretary, and following the restitution procedure, the Colonial Collections Committee requested the institution then managing the collection – Naturalis – to carry out provenance research, which resulted in a report in 2023. However, the Committee required further historical information about the context in which the excavations took place, about the legal and cultural aspects surrounding questions of ownership (of the collection itself as well as the ground from which it was excavated), and about the removal of the materials to the Netherlands. A multidisciplinary team of researchers – with cultural-historical and legal expertise – was approached to carry out this additional research.
Due to time constraints, the scale of the research and the required expertise, the extra provenance research was carried out by four researchers of the Expert Centre for Restitution of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Maarten van der Bent, Rosalie Hans, Wiebe Reints and Klaas Stutje), who focused mainly on historical research in the Netherlands. Indonesian researcher Yuanita Wahyu Pratiwi conducted archival research in Indonesian archives, which was integrated into the report prepared by the NIOD. Legal experts Tristam Moeliono from Indonesia and Jelle Jansen from the Netherlands focused on the questions of a legal nature.
Het provenance research
Provenance research usually focuses on the moment of loss of ownership of an item or collection and when it came into Dutch hands during colonial times. The research into the Dubois collection, on the other hand, covers a history of more than 150 years. It examined the period when the fossils were excavated (and under which conditions), the scientific context and cultural values attached to fossils in the Dutch East Indies at the time, official agreements regarding the collection’s ownership and storage in the first half of the twentieth century, and the political and cultural interest in the collection by the independent Indonesian state since the 1950s. It involved researching an extensive collection of archival materials, including Dutch governmental correspondence and other documents held at the National Archives, historical correspondence held at Leiden University, as well as historical correspondence held at the National Archives of Indonesia.
The research conducted by the team at the NIOD revealed, among other things, that the fossil collection excavated in Indonesia under Dubois’s supervision has always held not only scientific value but also political and cultural significance – first from a local Javanese perspective, later from an Indisch or Eurasian perspective and, following independence, from an Indonesian perspective. Furthermore, it shows that the collection and its history need to be viewed as entangled with a colonial system characterized by unequal power relations. The colonial state and army facilitated Dubois to conduct excavations at several locations, for instance by providing numerous convict laborers who were forced to work in the excavations. The research also revealed that the sites where fossils were found were of spiritual and economic significance to the local population, and at times local populations and traders did not want to reveal their location. The circumstances under which the fossils were obtained make it plausible that they were removed against the will of the local population.
The research focused on the legal aspects was determining to the advice of the Colonial Collections Committee. It showed that based on agreements made between Dutch colonial and state officials, the Dubois collection never became the property of the Dutch state. Of particular importance was the stipulation in the Governor General’s decree of 1889 that allowed Dubois to work in Java and Sumatra that stated that Dubois was obligated to place the excavated fossils at the disposal of the Dutch East Indies government. Moreover, when the collection was transferred to the Netherlands in the 1890s to be described and studied by Dubois, this was on the condition that it remained property of the colonial government. In 1933, Minister of Colonies Colijn decided that the collection would be transferred to the then National Museum of Geology and Mineralogyin Leiden, but only after Dubois finished his work. In 1940, Dubois died without having finished processing of the collection, and the suspensive condition was not met. Based on this information, the Committee concluded that the Republic of Indonesia, as the legal successor of the Dutch East Indies government, is the legitimate owner of the collection. This was further underscored by the finding that the excavations were conducted on land owned by the Dutch East Indies government.
In a process that took three years and based on the extensive research carried out over five months, the Colonial Collections Committee advised in favour of the unconditional return of the Dubois collection to Indonesia. On 26 September 2025, the Dutch Minister for Education, Culture and Science announced that the collection of 28,000 fossils would be returned to Indonesia. The fossils known as the Java Man were returned to Indonesia on 17 December 2025, and the rest of the collection will follow in the coming months.
Reflection
The importance of the Dubois collection cannot be separated from the colonial past of the Netherlands and Indonesia. By placing the cultural history of the collection at the centre of the provenance research (alongside its scientific value), a narrative emerged in which all facets of the (post)colonial past become visible: from the oppression of the local Indonesian population, to the development of contemporary scientific disciplines in the Netherlands, the Dutch East Indies, and Indonesia, as well the ambiguous postcolonial relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia in the second half of the twentieth century.
The case addressed in this blog shows that – although often seen as purely scientific and therefore “neutral” – natural history collections cannot be viewed as separate from cultural and political developments nor do they hold solely scientific value. Furthermore, it raises important questions regarding the traditional division made between culture-historical (or ethnographic) and scientific (or natural history) collections. For this reason, the current restitution debates on items collected or looted in colonial times should expand to include not only cultural items but also other types of collections.
Final words
To better understand the historic and current meanings of objects, and how to ethically care for them, information about their origin and acquisition histories are essential. Provenance research is an ongoing process for museums. The Colonial Collections Consortium supports institutions that manage collections with this work by sharing knowledge and information, and by offering stakeholders a network. Would you like to know more or share information with us? Please contact us!
References and further reading
The information presented in this blog derives from the provenance research reports that are part of the recommendation of the independent Colonial Collections Committee, on an article written by provenance researcher Wiebe Reints and published on the NIOD website, as well as a telephone conversation with provenance researcher Klaas Stutje. More information about the return of the Dubois collection can be found on the website of the Dutch government. For more information about the Dutch policy for dealing with collections from a colonial context, please see the website of the Colonial Collections Consortium.
Date: 15 January 2026
Time: 15:30-17:00 (CET)
Location: KITLV, Herta Mohr building (Room 1.30) and online via Zoom
Organisation: KITLV
In 2026, the Royal Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) is celebrating their 175th anniversary. In the Anniversary Seminar Series, KITLV invites people who have worked with them in the past 25 years, as visiting fellows, or involved in joint research projects. For the first seminar, KITLV has invited Valika Smeulders (Rijksmuseum) for an afternoon discussing the Rijksmuseum, its collections and its research.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is renowned world wide for its art collection, with the seventeenth century at its heart, featuring Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans Hals. As many European national museums built in the 19th century, its focus has been on the pride and glory of the Netherlands. Still, the 17th century is also the century of the foundation of the Dutch East India and West India Companies.
How does a Dutch museum re-invent itself to align with new insights and societal changes? How are the museum field and research focuses and policies changing? In her talk, Valika Smeulders will be reflecting on the work the museum has been doing in recent years, and looking forward into the coming years.
Symposium: The landscapes and cultural heritage of Saba and St. EustatiusDate: 19 February 2026
Time: 15:00-19:00
Location: Amersfoort, Oranjestad (St. Eustatius) and online
Organisation: Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) and the Public Entities of Saba and St. Eustatius.
Language: English
Saba and St. Eustatius are two small islands in the Caribbean. Within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, they share the status of “special municipality” together with Bonaire. The history of Saba and St. Eustatius goes back thousands of years, and much of this past can still be seen in the landscape. Experts from Saba and St. Eustatius, from the wider Caribbean, and from the European Netherlands have researched and documented this cultural heritage. On 19 February 2026, they will present their findings at a symposium organized by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) and the Public Entities of Saba and St. Eustatius.
On Saba, The Unspoiled Queen of the Caribbean, people have continually adapted to changing circumstances. Its nature is pristine, and the island is renowned for its cloud forest on the volcano and the coral reef of the Saba Bank. St. Eustatius, The Historical Gem of the Caribbean, has a very different history. It was once the center of Caribbean trade. Goods from all over the world were traded here, and it was also an important port in the trade of enslaved people. Today, both islands have their own distinctive architecture, landscapes, celebrations, and traditions.
For the first time, the landscapes and heritage of Saba and St. Eustatius have been brought together in two books and in digitally accessible maps. This is necessary, as the spatial challenges are significant. Tourism, housing development, demographic changes, and climate change threaten the character of both islands.
A live connection will be established on this day between St. Eustatius and Amersfoort, allowing residents of both the Caribbean Netherlands and the European Netherlands to learn about the shared histories of Saba and St. Eustatius.
Eight grants awarded for NWA research into collections with a colonial contextNWO has awarded funding to eight research projects in the second round of the Call for Research into collections with a colonial context. The awarded projects aim to promote knowledge development, knowledge exchange and cooperation between researchers from countries of origin and museums in the Netherlands.
A budget of 1.2 million euros is available for this Call. A maximum of €35,000 is available for research exchange proposals. A maximum of €350,000 is available for consortium grant proposals. In July 2024, eleven grants were awarded in the first round of this call for proposals.
Between 23-25 September 2025, approximately eighty participants gathered in the Netherlands for the European Working Conference on Collections from Colonial Contexts, organized by the Colonial Collections Consortium. This conference aimed at bringing together museum professionals working with objects and collections originating from colonial contexts to share experiences and exchange practical knowledge. The event intended to foster ongoing dialogue, and to help build a sustainable network of professionals committed to transparent, responsible stewardship. We are pleased to share a short summary, and an in-depth report of the conference.
Summary
The programme of the European Working Conference on Collections from Colonial Contexts, ran for three days and was hosted at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands in Amersfoort and the Wereldmuseum in Leiden. The programme consisted of sixteen speakers who each presented a case study from a European context. The sessions were centred around the key themes of the conference:
- Becoming transparent, doing our research
- Methods for return, procedures and logistics
- Caring for objects
- Shaping collaboration
Additionally, the programme included poster presentations.
The main points that emerged during the conference highlighted the importance of (1) accountability in working towards undoing of historical injustice, of (2) collaboration with communities of origin to make restitution into a meaningful practice that is guided by communities of origin and has the potential to establish long-term partnerships between institutions and communities, and of (3) institutions giving the reigns to communities of origin in collaborative processes, allowing communities to set the agenda and reappropriate collections through their own narratives. Reflecting on these takeaways, it becomes clear that meaningful collaboration requires openness, transparency and accountability from European institutions, in order to not reproduce relationships of the colonial past. Putting meaningful collaboration into practice was a continuous thread throughout the conference. Based on the outcomes of the conference and the next steps suggested by the participants, the Consortium intends to take several steps to initiate our shared responsibility of maintaining the networks and continuing the conversations and dialogues held during the conference. These steps include offering a platform that participants can actively participate in to share updates on their projects related to the careful handling of collections from a colonial context and offering a space for thematic expert meetings on important topics and issues that emerged. Museum professionals working with collections from a colonial context are invited to think along with these initiatives and give their input. The Consortium intends to share more about these next steps in the beginning of 2026.
The Consortium looks back on a conference that was successful in bringing together museum professionals working in Europe to exchange experiences and dilemmas relating to handling collections from a colonial context and building a network for those working with these collections. At the same time, we recognize that this conference had limitations, including the decision to only invite museum professionals working in Europe, which meant that the voices of communities of origin largely remained absent. Looking back on this conference, it is thus important to note that the takeaways have emerged within conversations between museum professionals working in Europe. We look forward to continuing the dialogue and expanding the network beyond museum professionals in Europe.
Report
Posters
Confrontar o legado colonial no Museu/Facing colonial legacy in the Museum – Museu Municipal Santos Rocha Figuieira da Foz
Ancestral remains from colonial contexts in the Van der Hoeven skull collection in Germany – University of Leipzig (Faculty of Medicine) and German Lost Art Foundation
Presented by Dr. Ulrike Lötzsch and Isabelle Reimann
UNESCO Chair on Museum Collections, Repatriation and Interculturality – Reinwardt Academy
Presented by Dr. Csilla Ariese
Duplicates in Museums: Becoming transparent about past curatorial practices – University of Brighton and the British Museum
Presented by Anne Nielsen
Provenance & Linked Open Data: Two international initiatives – Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Presented by Roxali Bijmoer and Annika Hendriksen
Incorporating decolonization in the daily work of the collection manager – Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Presented by Natasja den Ouden
Digital Research Aids – NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Presented by Wiebe Reints and Maarten van der Bent
Screening the Collection: Provenance Research at the Museum der Kulturen Basel (MKB) – Museum der Kulturen Basel
Presented by Basil Bucher
Sensitive Photography? Colonial Photo Collections at the Museum der Kulturen Basel – Museum der Kulturen Basel
Presented by Aila Özvegyi
(Tr)African(t)s. Museums and Collections of Catalonia in the Face of Coloniality – University of Barcelona
All images by Kevin Kwee
Humboldt University Berlin | Network Colonial Contexts Anniversary meetingDate: 26 November 2025
Time: 16:00-19:00
Location: Humboldt University Berlin
Organisation: Humboldt University Berlin, Network Colonial Collections
Language: German/English
On 26 November 2025, the Network Colonial Contexts of the Humboldt University in Berlin is celebrating its 5th anniversary. To mark this occasion, they invite those interested to an in-person event in Berlin for the first time. During the event, they will look back on the events of the last few years and take a look into the future.
The programma includes a guided tour through the photo collection of the art library and a roundtable discussion with Sarah Fründt (German Lost Art Foundation), Andrea Scholz (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) and Richard Kuba (Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropology), followed by drinks and dinner.
Final Conference Pressing Matter | Rethinking the Restitutionary Moment: What Next?Date: 27-28 November, 2025
Time: 09:00 – 17:00
Location: Wereldmuseum Leiden
Organisation: Pressing Matter, Wereldmuseum, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Research Center for Material Culture
Language: English
The multi-year research project Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums draws to a close at the end of 2025. Pressing Matter, funded by the Dutch Science Agenda (NWA-NWO) and the consortium partners, investigated the future of objects collected in colonial times. It asked about the potentialities of ‘colonial objects’ to support societal reconciliation with the colonial past and its afterlives, and how best to deal with conflicting claims by different stakeholders for these objects.
This final confernce explores what Pressing Matter’s critical friend, Professor Ciraj Rassool, has described as the restitutionary moment we now inhabit. The conference is conceived of as a series of provocations from distinguished international scholars who have been involved, both both theoretically and practically, in the discussions around the question of what to do with the objects collected during the colonial period that now reside in European Museums. Each presenter is asked to respond to the question ‘what now, what next?’. These presentations will be followed by extended conversations with the different researchers from the Pressing Matter project about their initial aims at the beginning of the project, what we have done, and how these aims may have been revised over the period of the project. Importantly, the conference explores what further work must be done to achieve the kinds of changes that Pressing Matter had imagined at the start of the project: to explore how we might conceive of restitution beyond its programmatic and policy limitations, but also to address the questions that this restitutionary moment raises in national and international contexts about living within the afterlives of colonialism.
Achille Mbembe: A Future of Solidarity
The two-day conference is preceded by a Brainwash Special with Achille Mbembe at the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam on Wednesday 26 November 2025, from 19:00-22:00. In this Brainwash Special, Wayne Modest, Director of Content at Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, will be in conversation with Achille Mbembe to discuss the fractures that define our societies today. How do we hold on to solidarity in a world that seems to divide rather than connect? And what might a future look like in which everyone truly matters?