From May 2021 to the end of April 2023, the ABI organised the research project "Provenance Research with a Restitution Perspective: Research Project on Dealing with the Alexander Ecker Collection" under the leadership of Andreas Mehler and together with the University of Freiburg.
On 26 and 27 April 2023, the final conference of the project took place in Freiburg, the first day at the ABI's facilities. Members of the scientific advisory board, which included academics from the regions of origin, were also able to attend.
The project has a model character and resulted in practical policy recommendations for dealing with human remains from colonial contexts. These policy recommendations were handed over to the Rector of the University of Freiburg, Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krieglstein, and the representative of the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts, Dr. Margret Frenz, on the second day of the final conference. The policy recommendations are available as a PDF, in English, German and in French.
As a follow-up to the project, Andreas Mehler and Kokou Azamede wrote together about opportunities and guiding values for dealing with colonial injustices and restitution. The article was published on Joint Future Blog (in German): "Restitution als Chance zum Dialog zwischen Zentrum & Peripherie" ?!"
Science communication
Given the broad public interest in the debates on restitution of cultural property, the research group was keen to make the key findings accessible to a wider audience. Dr Balz Andrea Alter was commissioned. He developed a concept that dares to attempt to artistically process research results from the project "Provenance Research with a Restitution Perspective".
This experiment in science communication is based on a 1.5-hour conversation between Prof. Wazi Apoh (University of Ghana) and Prof. Andreas Mehler (ABI). The text reflects the statements of the two experts in the form of film images and contains audiovisual excerpts from the discussions of the advisory board as well as material filmed with Prof. Albert Gouaffo (University of Dschang) at the Institute of Biological Anthropology at the University of Freiburg.
The voices of the two professors were re-enacted by two actors (Thomas Douglas for Andreas Mehler and Mbene Mbunga Mwambene for Wazi Apoh) and show some of the unexpected results of the research process in the exchange with the international advisory board. The video is available on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODoowhhexKQ
Background
Over several decades since the second half of the 19th century, European military personnel, scientists and merchants have brought cultural and everyday objects, as well as human remains, from the colonies of the time to their home countries. This is why skulls attributed to the African continent are kept in Freiburg - in the so-called Alexander Ecker Collection.
Alexander Ecker (1816-1887), an anatomist from Freiburg, was particularly active in collecting 450 skulls until the end of the 1870s, mostly resulting from archaeological excavations and research trips. Since 2002, the Alexander Ecker Collection has been a problematic part of the archives of the University of Freiburg. The collection also contains human remains whose acquisition and use cannot be considered ethically and scientifically justifiable from today's perspective; in the case of others, the acquisition process is difficult to reconstruct. Clarifying these cases and, if necessary, preparing for repatriation is the task of a research project funded by the German Foundation for the Loss of Cultural Property.
Funded by
