Museum der Kulturen Basel

Münsterplatz 20, 4051 Basel, Basel-Stadt

Text by Lucia Messer

How to decolonize a museum

The Museum of Cultures Basel (MKB) is the biggest ethnographical museum of Switzerland and holds a collection of over 340’000 objects from around the world. It aims to “shed light on the cultural dimensions of life that define each and every society in multiple and different ways” (MKB n.d. a). To decolonize a museum's narratives and the collection they are based on, it is worth looking at the context of acquisition and the provenance of its objects as they hold the power to spark new discussions and change. This might be especially true for Switzerland as some of the objects tell stories about colonial entanglements, which Switzerland prefers to deny or hide.

Figure 1 Museum der Kulturen

The museum was founded in 1893. Its collection then consisted for a large part of donated objects that scientists, travelers, and colonial traders brought to Switzerland. A significant part of the original collection was provided as a donation by Paul and Fritz Sarasin, two Swiss scientists and travelers based in Basel (MKB n.d. b). The donation included numerous objects taken under asymmetrical power relations from Ceylon during their research trips in the period of 1883-1925 in the context of British occupation of the island (Schär 2015; Willi 2019, 4). Although some of the objects were reserved for people with specific positions in spiritual rituals and others were human remains meant to be buried, they were shown in numerous exhibitions of the MKB and used as inspiration for racialized representations of “the other” (MKB 2020), which is very problematic.

Figure 2 Fritz Sarasin

Figure 3 Paul Sarasin

In the 1970s, after Sri Lanka obtained political independence from the UK, the director of the National Museum of Sri Lanka, Pilippu Hewa Don Hemasiri de Silva, filed a catalogue of objects violently taken from Ceylon that were scattered over 27 countries (de Silva 1975). For those he considered to have important cultural meaning for Sri Lanka, he filed a restitution claim to the responsible UN office. The catalogue addressed objects scattered all around Europe and was the very first request for restitution that reached Europe in an institutionalized setting and thus with a force that made it impossible to overlook. On that list were eleven objects that the MKB claimed as their property. Suddenly, Switzerland was urged to take a stance in the question of restitution and the handling of sensitive and/or stolen objects (Willi 2019, 4).

Figure 4 Files, random image

As all the objects that Sri Lanka claimed back from Switzerland are in the hands of the MKB, its president at the time Gerhard Baer played a major role in shaping Switzerland's extremely cautious attitude towards restitution claims. For him the issue of collections from formerly colonized areas was less an issue of colonial entanglements, reparations and forms of collaboration for the future, than an image problem for the MKB and Switzerland that had to be dealt with (Willi 2019, 13). As a result, the reclaimed items were not returned and the topic was dismissed and disappeared from the agenda of European decision-makers.

Figure 5 Gerhard Baer

After many years of hard work by people from formerly colonized countries an international discussion on the handling of European colonial collections (re)emerged. Important moments were the decision of the French president Macron to commit to the restitution of cultural objects taken from West-Africa (Savoy 2018) and the report of Savoy and Sarr proposing solutions for European institutions (Sarr and Savoy 2018).

Figure 6 Benedicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr

The MKB too engaged in a critical reflection of its own collection with a special exhibition named Thirst for Knowledge meets Collecting Mania in 2019-20 and has given back single objects. Currently it is taking part in the Swiss Benin Initiative which is a collaboration between Swiss and Nigerian institutions on provenance research and transparency on collections from the kingdom of Benin. The history of Paul and Fritz Sarasin and the objects they brought was researched by the historian Bernhard Schär and taken up in a play and art exhibition at the Theater Basel in 2020, engaging with a wider public to disentangle Switzerland’s colonial relations (Ryser and Schonfeldt 2020).

Figure 7 Exhibition Thirst for Knowledge meets Collecting Mania at the MKB 2019-2020

Exhibitions like this can be a basis for an acknowledgement of the Museums and Basel’s colonial entanglements that shape the city until today. And starting from there, a basis for further research, practical missions as acquisition policies, revision of narratives, policies on staff recruitment or educational programs as well as restitution and a reorganization of collaboration between institutions of the global North and South.

Sources

de Silva, P. (1975). A Catalogue of Antiquities and Other Cultural Objects from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) Abroad. Colombo: National Museums of Sri Lanka.

MKB (2020). Wissensdrang trifft Sammelwut. Ausstellungskatalog. Basel: MKB.

MKB (n.d). About Us. Seeing the World with Different Eyes. https://www.mkb.ch/en/museum/ueber-uns.html

MKB (n.d) History of the Museum. https://www.mkb.ch/en/museum/ueber- uns/geschichte.html

Ryser, V. and Schonfeldt, S. (2020), “Voices from an archived silence. A Research and Exhibition Project on Basel’s Colonial History. http://www.veraryser.ch/10/Stimmen%20aus%20einer%20archivierten%20Stille_Publikation.pdf

Sarr, F. , Savoy, B. (2018). Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel africain. Vers une nouvelle éthique relationnelle. N°2018-26. Paris: Ministère de la Culture.

Savoy, B. (2018). Die Zukunft des Kulturbesitzes. FAZ.net. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/kunst-und-architektur/macron-fordert-endgueltige- restitutionen-des-afrikanisches-erbes-an-afrika-15388474.html

Schär, B. (2015). Tropenliebe. Schweizer Naturforscher und niederländischer Imperialismus in Südostasien um 1900. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag GmbH.

Willi, D. (2019). Tropendiebe? Die Debatte um die Restitution sri-lankischer Kulturgüter im Museum für Völkerkunde Basel 1976-1984. Zürich: Universität Zürich.