Heritage, museums, collections. Professionals’ sharing of skills between
Africa and Europe.

Conference, Rome, 24-25 September 2025. Call for papers.
(ICOM Europe-ICOM Africa, ICOM Arab, Italian Ministry of Culture DIVA, ICOM Italy, ICOFOM, SUSTAIN, MPR, AVICOM, INTERCOM, ICOM WGD)

Debates involving museums and decolonization practices are ongoing and evolving, taking
into account the global consequences of colonialism in contemporary societies, including
social and economic inequalities, the marginalization of certain populations, ongoing
threats to indigenous peoples and their traditional lands, institutional racism, and sexism
in all their forms.

Decolonization, in its many uses by museums and curators, is a practice and an effort that
sits within a continuum – which in turn looks different in different parts of the world –
addressing various difficult histories related to political relations and processes of the
Empire formation, and resulting in various experimental solutions. But one general thing
we must recognize from the current debate is the fact that “decolonization” is about
probing into the systems used, the destruction wrought and remedying, by telling the
difficult truth of its ruthlessness. Restitution involves not only a material (and legal)
transfer of colonial objects, but also a spiritual return of identity knowledge that had been
taken off. More significantly, for people claiming their right to memory, restitution means
a reconnection with history: a reconnection that requires their collaboration with the
institutions that narrate the colonial past, by engaging in collaborative practices to
reconnect with the material traces of their past that are currently held by European
museums in order to use and/or rediscover traditional knowledge, and engaging in
collaborative practices, African and Afro-descendant curators, artists, activists, and
scholars. European museums are rewriting narratives, changing practices, and sharing
their imagery and knowledge as a mean to ‘decolonize’.

Sharing must lead to the recognition of cultural diversity and consequently to thinking of
the museum not as an absolute entity with similar characteristics – which are also ‘colonial’
in the exportation of the Western historical model -, but as realities linked to processes of
memory formation, processes which, for historical, anthropological and sociological
reasons, cannot respond to absolute models but respond to territorial realities that develop
their own models. The presence, in terms of quality and quantity, of tangible and intangible works of African
provenance in European museums, dedicated institutions, religious, missionary,
ethnological and scientific institutions, mainly universities, is enormous and partially
unknown.

For all collections not subject to restitution, a long task awaits the depository museums,
their reconnaissance and cataloguing with the verification of provenance and the definition
of the exhibition criteria and the museological projects for their enhancement (mediation
apparatus, conservation, restauration and educational projects).

The difficulties of interpretation, more generally, concern all art that does not belong to
long-standing cultural systems. By referring to studies focused on cultures other than our
own, we are able to recover visions and attitudes that allow us to understand our own
heritage much better and recover the intelligence of our past.

It is precisely for this reason that the European musealization of objects from outside
Europe cannot take place without dialogue on the pivotal concepts for such collections, the
concept of heritage and museum.

The conference in the present document wants to exchange views about new ways of
considering African museum heritage in European museums by comparing concepts of
museum and heritage in European and African thought and practice.

It will include two in-depth conceptual sessions with four keynote speakers, two from
Europe and two from Africa, followed by two panel discussions. This session will be
followed by three panels of comparative experiences between European and African
museologists and museum professionals, summarised in a final discussion of reports and
posters.

Papers and posters should refer to the conceptual choice of the conference and, in
particular, to three areas (panels):

– Heritage and museum. Musealisation, conservation, digital, restoration, research, study
and cataloguing.

– Museum displays. New readings and new interpretations.

– Heritage. Museums. Collections. The communities’ role.

The scientific committee will particularly appreciate the account and highlighting of
challenges (political, social, technological, managerial, organisational, personnel and
personnel training) faced by African and European museum professionals as they work
toward a more anticolonial relationship.

Speakers are invited to submit their proposals in English or French with a short
explanatory text (max. 300 words), the title and the chosen area (panel), indicating
whether the presentation is to be a lecture or a poster.
Speakers chosen by the scientific committee will have to present their paper in person; online papers are not foreseen. The invitation includes the coverage of the expenses for travels and accommodations at the conference venue.

Posters may be sent, also by e-mail, to the conference organisation, printed and displayed
at the expense of the conference. No reimbursements for travels and accommodations
expenses are provided for the writers of the posters.

All proposals must be received by 25 May 2025 by the writer (chair.icomeurope@gmail.com). Proposals received after this date cannot be evaluated and considered. Admissions will be notified by June 10, 2025.