Quantum Governance: From Representation to Responsibility in the Museum of the Future

As museums confront intensifying debates around restitution, digital transformation, and contested heritage, their governance models often remain unchanged—hierarchical, extractive, and rooted in colonial taxonomies. In this joint presentation, curator Philippe Pirotte and artist, engineer, and digital-governance practitioner Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé, moderated by Dr Vera Mey, explore how artistic practice, curatorial thought, and technological systems can jointly reimagine the museum for a pluralistic digital future.

Abstract

Beginning with Bamgboyé’s early analogue photographic work challenging ethnographic and anthropological representations of Black bodies, the discussion traces his transition through the landmark Unmasking projects of the late 1990s and early 2000s. These works foregrounded scanning, datafication, and user manipulation to expose the constructed nature of representation, creating an equivalence between museum artefacts and personal objects. They proposed an interactive African art museum in which users could navigate multiple digital states of a work, marking a shift from critiquing images to interrogating institutional systems.

Pirotte situates this trajectory within broader debates on institutional critique, co-authorship, and the politics of display, extending earlier conversations from Unmasking Series – Towards Public Co-creation at Städelschule into the present. Bamgboyé connects Unmasking 3 – A Framework for the Interactive African Art Museum directly to his current Museums 3.0 / UQUANTUM work on Quantum Governance, where branching mesh states, AI reasoning models, and participatory democracy platforms form core museum infrastructure rather than peripheral tools.

Central to the presentation is a long-term case study of the Queen Mother Head looted from Benin City and now in Liverpool. Through this object, the speakers examine how digital twins, AI, and participatory platforms can enable multiple, coexisting, and accountable interpretations of cultural heritage. Rather than framing restitution as a binary question of ownership, Quantum Governance proposes digital repatriation as an ongoing, visible relationship that redistributes authority over classification, repair, narration, and meaning without erasing disagreement or conflict.

Moderated by Dr Vera Mey, the session brings curatorial reflection, artistic imagination, and technological practice into dialogue, positioning the museum not as a neutral authority but as a Museum 3.0 platform for cultural negotiation. The speakers argue that museums face an urgent choice: to build open, participatory infrastructures for cultural governance now, or risk allowing AI-driven systems to permanently encode colonial hierarchies into the digital future. The tools and precedents already exist; what remains in question is institutional willingness to relinquish control and embrace shared authorship.

Image (poster): UQUANTUM Ltd

Image (banner): Kevin Laminto, Unsplash