Benin bronzes at the British Museum. Photo Credit: AllAfrica.com This segment on NPR probes the ethical concerns of museums housing African art that was stolen from their native population. Remarking on the history of colonialism, theft, and museums, this discussion is fostered by the minds and expertise of Contemporary Archaeology professor and curator Dan Hicks, professor of African and Africa Diaspora Art Chika Okeke-Agulu, and Deborah Mack, interim director of the National museum of African Art.
Some of these histories have to be recovered precisely because the stories, the accounts, of these objects that you find in museums hardly ever mention how they arrived in these museums. And for that reason, a lot of things get lost, in terms of what narratives these museums tell about these objects. - Chika Okeke-Agulu
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