Date: Wednesday 1 October
Time: 10:00 – 17:00
Location: Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, Smallepad 5, Amersfoort
Organisation: Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed en Nederlandse Kastelenstichting
Voertaal: Dutch
The Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) and the Dutch Foundation for Castles (NKS) are organising a meeting on the shared past and joint future of castles and country houses. Together with experts, and the audience, they explore and discuss the heritage of castles and country houses, as part of the colonial past and the past of slavery. This meeting takes place on 1 October, 2025.
During the meeting, the presence and (in)visibility of traces of the slavery past are discussed, through practical case studies and recent research counducted at country estates. Additionally, the Colonial Collections Datahub is presented as a new digital research tool. The program allows space for different perspectives on the continuation of the colonial and the slavery past, and furthermore includes performances, spoken word and poetry.
SAHRA Heritage Month 2025: International Virtual SeminarDate: Thursday 18 September 2025
Time: 09:00 – 17:00
Location: Online
Organisation: South African Heritage Resources Agency
Language: English
As part of the SAHRA Heritage Month 2025, the South African Heritage Resources Agency is hosting a series of virtual seminars. This year’s webinar, under the theme ‘Resilient Heritage: Safeguarding South Africa’s Legacy in a Changing Climate,’ takes place over four days in a fully virtual format. The program aligns with broader G20 theme of Climate Change and Resilience, reflecting the commitment to engaging with global conversations on sustainability, climate adaptation, and cultural preservation.
On 18 September, the SAHRA will in particular focus on colonial collections and restitution, during the webinar ‘Restitution of Cultural Property’, bringing together global voices to explore pathways for return, protection, and circulation of cultural heritage. This dialogue will reflect on international best practices, highlight Africa’s experiences in restitution, and consider how G20 collaboration can strengthen policy, diplomacy, and ethical stewardship to include voluntary disclosures by the host/holding countries. By engaging experts, governments, and heritage practitioners, the webinar seeks to advance a shared commitment to justice, reconciliation, and sustainable cultural heritage management.
The full programme of this virtual seminar is available below.
Webinar Colonial Collections Datahub: introduction and conversation
The Colonial Collections Datahub is a digital platform that brings together, enriches and provides insights into collections from colonial contexts. It includes heritage from Suriname, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and many other countries and areas scattered across various institutions. In this webinar you will learn more about how the datahub works, how you can contribute and how it relates to your work. You will hear about local digital heritage initiatives and together we will exchange experiences and ideas around the role these platforms can play in restitution work.
These webinars are organised in collaboration between the Heritage Academy and Consortium Colonial Collections. The webinar will be given three times to facilitate participation across different time zones and regions:
South Asian and Southeast Asian context
Tuesday 30 September, 2025 | 10:00 – 12:00 CEST / 15.00 – 17:00 WIB
African context
Thursday 2 October, 2025 | 14:00 – 16:00 CEST / 13.00 – 15:00 WAT
Caribbean context
Wednesday 8 October, 2025 | 15:00 – 17:00 CEST / 09:00 – 11:00 AST
More information?
The European Working Conference on Collections from Colonial ContextsDate: 23-25 September 2025
Location: Amersfoort and Leiden, The Netherlands
Organisation: Colonial Collections Consortium
Language: English
Many museums and institutions across Europe are custodians of objects and collections originating from colonial contexts. As professionals managing these collections, and recognizing our shared responsibility in addressing historical injustices, how can we best fulfill this role? What can we learn from each other’s experiences?
The Consortium Colonial Collections in the Netherlands warmly invites museum and collection professionals across Europe to participate in The European Working Conference on Collections from Colonial Contexts.
Want to know more about this conference? Click the button below for more information.
Restitution in Practice: an Artistic Approach to the Return of Ancestral ObjectsDate: Tuesday 24 June 2025
Time: 4.00 – 6.00 PM (CEST)
Location: Kartini room at the University of Amsterdam
Address: Bushuis, Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX
Organisation: University of Amsterdam
Language: English, Spanish
The CHEco (Critical Heritage Ecologies) research initiative invites you to ‘Restitution in Practice: an Artistic Approach to the Return of Ancestral Objects’. Two members of the artistic collective Minga Prácticas Decoloniales will share their experiences and perspectives on the return of cultural objects held in European museums to their communities of origin in South America, with a particular focus on Colombia.
Focusing on their encounter with gold artifacts from the so-called Quimbaya Treasure—currently housed at the Museo de América in Madrid and the Humboldt Forum in Berlin—the artists explore how artistic practice can become a tool for reparation and reconnection. Drawing on the ritual and spiritual dimensions of Indigenous knowledge, they reflect on how art can help reweave the broken ties between objects, memory, and territory.
Speakers: Estefanía García Pineda and Edinson Quiñones
Moderator: María Suárez Caicedo
Registration
Please register by sending an email to m.p.suarezcaicedo@uva.nl
Date: Thursday 26 June 2025
Time: 01.30 – 4.30 PM (CEST)
Location: Wereldmuseum Leiden
Address: Steenstraat 1 2312 BS Leiden
Organisation: Universiteit Leiden, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
Leiden University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam are jointly organizing a networking event as part of the joint sector theme ‘Cultural heritage and identity: collecting, management and transfer’. You are cordially invited to attend.
The restitution of objects and collections and the decolonization of the institutions to which these collections belong are high on the agenda. Through co-creation and new, digital techniques, collections managers want to open up collections in a more equitable and inclusive way. These trends require us to reflect not only on our practice as researchers, but also on our conceptual understanding of the collection, management and transfer of cultural heritage.
What is the place of cultural heritage collections in our research? How is the digitization of these collections changing our research practice? And to what extent do archival and research infrastructures – digital and physical – influence our approach to heritage collections?
On 26 June we would like to discuss these questions and share experiences with you, together with partners from the heritage sector. The programme will start with four presentations followed by a panel discussion and debate with the audience.
- Mariana de Campos Françozo (Universiteit Leiden) – Indigenous South America in Museum Collections: Evolving Research Perspectives
- Quinsy Gario (Vrije Universiteit) – In Plain Sight: Dutch Afro-Caribbean art practices and Dutch colonial collections
- Alicia Schrikker (Universiteit Leiden) – Colonial Collections and the Repatriation of Objects
- Lorella Viola (Vrije Universiteit) – Polyvocal Interpretations of Contested Colonial Heritage
Date: Wednesday July 9 2025
Time: 2:00 – 6:00 PM (CEST)
Location: AGORA Room 2: Main Building HG-3CO2
Address: VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam
Organisation: University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, The Netherlands Sri Lanka Foundation, The Netherlands and the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) Amsterdam
Language: English
The taking of cultural objects from Sri Lanka during the Dutch colonial encounter in this country has raised fundamental questions of justice and legality. Given the continuous evolution of the notion of justice, an important issue is the question of who will decide and on what basis the decision will be made, on which injustices emerged in the historical entanglement of the United Provinces and then Ceylon in general and specifically in relation to cultural artefacts. When considering the causes for such historical injustice it is asserted that there may be a difference of approach to governance. To address the issues of historical injustice there is a need to broaden and deepen the knowledge of the legal basis of the early colonial encounter.
This NWO funded project attempts to provide insights into addressing questions such as: How to recognise and acknowledge these injustices? If objects or artefacts, now in the Netherlands, are to be returned to Sri Lanka then what exactly is being returned, resitituted, or even restored? What are the (provenance research) methodological and policy making considerations that needs to be addressed? How could shared and collective learning be organised? These are some of the key ideas that will be addressed in the project.
This symposium is to provide a flavour of the NWO funded project topics. The following four themes would be presented to the participants in the anticipation of critical questioning by and constructive feed-back from the participants of the symposium.
Programme Introduction by:
- Naazima Kamardeen, (Prof. Dr.), University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Wouter Veraart, (Prof. Dr.) Free University, Amsterdam
- Wayne Modest (Prof. Dr.) Wereldmuseum, Leiden
- Dilip Tambyrajah (Mr) Netherlands-Sri Lanka Foundation, Netherlands
Project content presentations
1. Redressing Historical Injustice:
A Study of the legal entanglements in relation to Colonial Cultural Property in the Netherlands-Sri Lankan Context | By: Dumindu Madushan (Mr) University of Colombo. PhD candidate.
2. Getting the Story Right:
Collaborative Research to Review and Advance the Practice of Provenance Research | By: Darshi Thoradeniya, (Dr.) University of Colombo
3. Preserving for Posterity:
Legality of digitizing Sri Lankan objects in Dutch museum of the colonial period and creating a repository of object records | By: Tavini Nanayakkara (Ms) University of Colombo
4. Building Sustainable Networks for Collaboration:
A Lab for Transdisciplinary Colonial Collection Studies and Practice in Sri Lanka (& international cooperation) | By: Dilip Tambyrajah & Nirmal Dewasiri (Prof. Dr.) University of Colombo
Confirmation participation
Please confirm participation by sending a brief email by 1st July 2025 to Dilip Tambyrajah at: dilip.tambyrajah@wxs.nl
Online Consultations for Scheme Provenance Research Colonial CollectionsDo you work at a Dutch heritage institution, such as a museum, university, archive or library, that manages colonial collections or objects and would you like to map out the provenance history? The Consortium Colonial Collections can support your research project through the Provenance Research Scheme. In May, we will organise three online consultation hours to explain the scheme and the requirements step by step. You can then also ask your questions to the consortium colleagues.
The online consultations will take place in Dutch via MS Teams on:
- Tuesday 20 May 2025, 3pm-4pm
- Wednesday 21 May 2025, 10am-11am
- Thursday 22 May, 3pm-4pm
There are a maximum of 15 spots per consultation hour. Sign up to receive the MS Teams link!
Date: 15 March – 21 September 2025
Location: University Museum Groningen
Address: Oude Kijk in ’t Jatstraat 7a, 9712 EA, Groningen
Organisation: the exhibition is part of the international research project Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value, and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums and was curated by researchers from Amsterdam, Groningen, and Leiden.
How did orangutans from Borneo end up on a dissection table in the Netherlands? What happened to the elephants studied by scientists? How did they gain access to human remains from the Netherlands and its colonies? And what impact did their work have on the development of racial science?
The University Museum Groningen presents Entangled Stories: Science and Colonialism in the Collection of Petrus Camper, an exhibition exploring the colonial history of the university’s collection. At its core is the legacy of scientist Petrus Camper (1722–1789), whose collection has been preserved at the University of Groningen for over 200 years.
Camper was a man of contradictions: he opposed slavery, yet he collected human remains from the colonies without consent. For years, Petrus Camper was honored through exhibitions (including at the University Museum) and in the city of Groningen. However, with today’s understanding, critical questions must be asked about how Camper and other scientists obtained human and animal specimens. The exhibition highlights how Camper’s legacy is intertwined with colonial structures and the development of scientific racism. How should museums address this history?
Entangled Stories invites visitors to take a fresh look at the history of science and to reflect on the future of academic heritage.
The exhibition, on display from 15 March until 21 September 2025, is part of the international research project Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value, and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums and was curated by researchers from Amsterdam, Groningen, and Leiden. For more information about Pressing Matter, please visit www.pressingmatter.nl
Book presentation: Legacies of colonialism in museum collectionsDate: Thursday 15 May 2025
Tim: 3.30 – 5.00 PM (CET)
Location: KITLV, Herta Mohr building, room 1.30
Address: Witte Singel 27A, 2311 BG, Leiden
Organisation: Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV) / Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies
Language: English
In ‘Legacies of colonialism in museum collections: The (un)making of Indonesian Islam in the Netherlands’ Mirjam Shatanawi tells the untold story of Indonesian Islam in museums. Often overshadowed by Hindu-Buddhist art, Indonesian Islamic heritage rarely receives the attention it deserves in museum collections and exhibitions.
This book unravels the historical silences rooted in Dutch colonial rule that have marginalized Indonesian Islamic material culture. Delving into the colonial archives, it traces the journey of Indonesian objects in Dutch museums, exploring their original meanings and their re-appropriation during instances of collecting, classification, interpretation and public display. The analysis focuses on the long-term effects in the present, in particular in relation to the decolonisation of museums.
What are the structural patterns inherited from colonialism that result in silences today? How can repair happen beyond repatriation and re-interpretation of individual objects? Through this lens, the book addresses the enduring impacts of colonialism and offers pathways for the decolonization of museums today.
Author
Mirjam Shatanawi is a postdoctoral researcher at KITLV, where she conducts research on the provenance and makings of the institute’s collection of manuscripts and books from Indonesia. She is also a Senior Lecturer of Heritage Theory at the Reinwardt Academy (Amsterdam University of the Arts).
Discussants
Susie Protschky is Professor of Global Political History at VU University. She is specialised in modern Dutch colonialism, Indonesian history, and the history of photography.
Adieyatna Fajri is a PhD Candidate at NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies and Groningen Institute of Archaeology, University of Groningen.
Theo Frids Hubarat is a Lecturer at Parahyangan Catholic University and fellow at NIAS.
Moderator
Marieke Bloembergen is Professor of Heritage and Postcolonial Studies in Indonesian History at the Institute for History and the KITLV. Her research interests concern the political dynamics of cultural knowledge production in colonial and post-colonial Indonesia.
