Colonial realism: A talk with Prof Dan Hicks, author of The Brutish Museums

A talk by Professor Dan Hicks on Colonial Realism and its implications in current repatriation debates. This will be followed by a conversation with Onyekachi Wambu on the recent developments (and complexities) that have arisen since the first efforts of repatriating the Benin Bronzes surfaced in 2020.

Abstract

Is the work of restitution in Euro-American museums a necessary acknowledgement of past imperialist injustice, or just another claim to White innocence? This talk seeks to widen the frame conventionally applied to the question of returning stolen items in museum collections, and to reconsider connections with statues in the streets, knowledge in academic disciplines, and the ongoing work of abolitionism, emancipation and anti-racism in legacy colonial institutions from museums to universities. 

In doing so the talk examines how ideas of 'culture' were put to work for the purposes of supremacy in the later Victorian era, and how we might address those unfinished histories in the present: taking stock of the lines that run between ''fabulation' and 'realism'.

About the speaker

Dan Hicks is a Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford, Curator of World Archaeology at Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. He has published widely on material and visual culture from the recent past and the near present. His most recent books are The Brutish Museums (Pluto Press 2020), Lande: the Calais 'Jungle' and Beyond (with Sarah Mallet, Bristol University Press 2019), Archaeology and Photography (edited with Lesley McFadyen, Bloomsbury 2019) and Isle of Rust (with Alex Boyd and Jonathan Meades, Luath Press 2019). His next book, Every Monument Will Fall, will be published in 2025.

About the moderator

Onyekachi Wambu is currently the Director for Special Projects at AFFORD - a charity that seeks to enhance the contributions that Africans in the diaspora make to Africa’s development. Since 1990 Onyekachi has taken a leadership role on issues of African cultural heritage, especially focusing on the impact of slavery and colonialism, advocating on these issues in the UK and Internationally. 

Organiser

The PARR (Provenance, Accessibility, Repatriation and Restitution) Working Group is a SOAS-wide network that draws together colleagues with shared interests in grounding SOAS’ decolonising agenda through practical approaches that seek to repair post-colonial trauma and loss. The Network looks at issues surrounding repatriation, encompassing both digital and material dimensions especially in relation to Area Studies and colonial archives (textual, sonic, visual, and material culture). 

PARR is underscoring the necessity of expanding definitions and approaches to repatriation, evolving into rematriating practices that redefine the process beyond the mere physical transfer of objects to source cultures. Instead, the network emphasises a relational process that aims to establish source community-based spaces for co-producing knowledge about collections, creating community-led methods for redefining the value and significance of their material heritage, and building capacity to inscribe this knowledge in ways that are accessible, transferable, and meaningful to source cultures.

This event is free of charge, but registration is required.

Image credit: Benin Bronzes via Wikipedia Commons.