Workshop Colonial Provenance - Reader

Workshop, June 11, 2022 READER

Colonial Provenance.

Swiss museum collections in need of clarification.

Provenance research of material heritage in Swiss museum collections has so far mainly focused on collections with a potential connection to Nazi looted art. In the 2021-2022 funding period, the Federal Office of Culture (FOC) also supports provenance research projects at Swiss museums that are explicitly dedicated to researching the acquisition and ownership histories of objects collected in colonial contexts. The expansion of funding to include the according holdings is evidence of a changing awareness – at the federal level as well as at the level of individual institutions – regarding the role of Swiss museums and collectors in the context of Europe's colonial expansion.

Based on the project ‘Traces of Colonial Provenance’1, which is one of the projects funded by the FOC, the workshop will present provenance research currently being carried out at Swiss museums on collections from colonial acquisition contexts. On the one hand, the focus will be on networking and the possibility of exchange between the researchers themselves.

On the other hand, the method of provenance research and the relevance of material heritage for historiography as such will be critically reflected based on current theses of (post-)colonial Switzerland. Provenance research conducted at museums is thus deliberately exposed to a broader academic debate to discuss the role of museums as Switzerland’s colonial archives.

The official and full title of the project is in German and reads: «Spuren kolonialer Provenienz. Die Erforschung ethnografischer Sammlungsprovenienzen anhand des ‘Zeller-Archivs’ am Bernischen Historischen Museum»

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Timetable 08:30

Registration

09:00

Welcome note: Thomas Pauli-Gabi, Director of Bernisches Historisches Museum

09:15

PRESENTATIONS: THE HERITAGE OF COLONIAL SWITZERLAND Samuel Bachmann, Bernisches Historisches Museum The museum as a colonial archive Priska Gisler, Luzia Huerzeler, Sarah Csernay, Hochschule der Künste Bern Long-distance relationships. Explorations of the ‘Tiere Afrikas’ in the Natural History Museum Bern Michaela Oberhofer, Museum Rietberg Zürich Questioning the (post)colonial archive of Hans Himmelheber on African art and artists Maria Randy Mwatondange, University of Basel, Julia Hohn, Museum der Kulturen Basel Collector and Object biographies at Museum der Kulturen in Basel (Namibian Collection) Aline Minder and Anna-Pierina Godenzi, Bernisches Historisches Museum The BHM LAB: Challenging exhibitions through a postcolonial lens

10:45

Coffee Break

11:15

DISCUSSION: THE HERITAGE OF COLONIAL SWITZERLAND Moderation: Thomas Laely

12:15

Lunch Break

13:45

Keynote: Ciraj Rassool, University of the Western Cape Confronting colonialisms in South Africa and Germany: Some lessons for Swiss museums?

14:30

Short Break

14:45

PRESENTATIONS: RESEARCHING, DOCUMENTING, AND COMMUNICATING COLONIAL PROVENANCES Alice Hertzog, Benin Initiative Switzerland Back and Forths: Collaborative Provenance research on the Benin Bronzes in Switzerland Kim Karlsson, Museum Rietberg Zürich From Suzhou to Zurich via Shanghai and Hong Kong: Dealing with Chinese Paintings.

Karin Kaufmann, North America Native Museum Researching "sensitive objects" – considering and documenting traces of emotions in the archive Aila Özvegyi, Basil Bucher, Nadège Kittel, Museum der Kulturen Basel Actor-Based Provenance Research: Potential and Challenges?

Marina Berazategui, Bernisches Historisches Museum Documenting Absences

16:15

Short Break

16:30

DISCUSSION: RESEARCHING, DOCUMENTING, AND COMMUNICATING COLONIAL PROVENANCES Moderation: Samuel Bachmann

17:30

Apéro

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Workshop 1: The heritage of colonial Switzerland 9:15 – 12:15 Historical collections of non-European material heritage in Switzerland refer to numerous biographies of people and institutions that were active in various functions in colonies worldwide. The study of scientific collections (ethnographic, zoological, botanical, etc.) from colonized areas also provides insights into the contexts in which they were acquired and amassed. Furthermore, they can be used to explore a system of Eurocentric knowledge production that contributed significantly to the exercise of colonial rule and in which Switzerland was particularly involved. To what extent and in what potential way can museums be understood and used in this sense as colonial archives and their collections as testimonies of Switzerland's colonial entanglements?

09:15

PRESENTATIONS: THE HERITAGE OF COLONIAL SWITZERLAND Samuel Bachmann, Bernisches Historisches Museum The museum as a colonial archive Priska Gisler, Luzia Huerzeler, Sarah Csernay, Hochschule der Künste Bern Long-distance relationships. Explorations of the ‘Tiere Afrikas’ in the Natural History Museum Bern Michaela Oberhofer, Museum Rietberg Zürich Questioning the (post)colonial archive of Hans Himmelheber on African art and artists Maria Randy Mwatondange, University of Basel, Julia Hohn, Museum der Kulturen Basel Collector and Object biographies at Museum der Kulturen in Basel (Namibian Collection) Aline Minder and Anna-Pierina Godenzi, Bernisches Historisches Museum The BHM LAB: Challenging exhibitions through a postcolonial lens

10:45

Coffee Break

11:15

DISCUSSION: THE HERITAGE OF COLONIAL SWITZERLAND Moderation: Thomas Laely

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09:15 am Title of Presentation: The museum as a colonial archive Research Project: Spuren kolonialer Provenienz. Erforschung ethnografischer Sammlungsprovenienzen anhand des ‘Zeller-Archivs’ am Bernischen Historischen Museum Institution: Bernisches Historisches Museum (BHM) Speaker(s): Samuel Bachmann

Ethnographic collecting was part of a euro-centric system of knowledge production that supported the exertion of colonial power, as it was directly contributing to a needed and required body of knowledge about the ‘nature of the colonized’. Ethnographic collecting was about to classify those who would become the subjects of colonization. While the method of ethnographic collecting in the field might have developed either way, its actual historical development cannot be reckoned outside European colonial expansion.

Public museums in the colonial metropoles in Europe, as recipients of vast materials of ethnographic collecting endeavors, were directly involved in colonial knowledge production and, consequently, have become mighty archives of colonialism. It seems surprising, however, that ethnographic museums in formally non-colonial European states, such as in Switzerland, managed to assemble ethnographic collections from former colonies that were often just as vast. Although Swiss ethnographic collections might have been more provincial and smaller in size than those in the metropoles, the museums still managed to assemble overwhelming amounts of ethnographic collections from a broad variety of different colonial contexts.

In my presentation, I track back the provenances of an ethnographic collection assembled by a Swiss railway engineer called Victor Solioz who collected ethnographic materials during his stay in German Southwest Africa between 1903 and 1906 and of which most parts are stored in the Historical Museum in Bern. Victor’s material and immaterial legacies in the museal archive are understood as traces of the collector’s colonial entanglements. It is shown how Solioz together with the museum, through the joint venture of creating an ethnographic collection from German Southwest Africa, acted as agents of the empire.

By understanding and exploring this so-called ethnographic collection as a promising tool and source for the research on ideas and practices of colonial knowledge production in Switzerland, the museum becomes one of the country’s supposedly missing colonial archive.

The case study of the Solioz collections shows, furthermore, that provenance research is 4

much more than only acquisition and ownership history of artifacts but leads to profound methodological critic and innovation and, ultimately, to the questions of the potential futures of colonial collections. *********************************************************************************************************************************

09:30 am Title of Presentation: Long-distance relationships. Exploring ‘Tiere Afrikas’ at the Natural History Museum Bern Research Project: Afrika hinter Glas. Eine künstlerische und ethnographische Untersuchung von Herstellungs-, Darstellungs- und Instandhaltungspraktiken der Berner Dioramensammlung Institution: University of the Arts Bern (HKB) Speaker(s): Priska Gisler, Luzia Hürzeler, Sarah Csernay

In a research project funded by the SNSF from 2020 to 2024 and conducted at the Bern University of the Arts, we are studying the so-called “Tiere Afrikas”, a series of dioramas presented at the Bern Museum of Natural History. A large part of the skulls, horns, bones and also animal skins that were used for the taxidermies go back to a hunting expedition undertaken by Bernard and Vivienne von Wattenwyl to Kenya, Uganda and the Belgian Congo in 1923 and 1924. The carefully made preparations, as well as the artificial landscapes in which they were set and the background paintings have been carefully looked after and maintained to this day and still receive a lot of attention. We are investigating the practices involved in the production, the display and the maintenance of the dioramas by combining artistic, ethnographic and historical-sociological methods. The interdisciplinary team consists of an artist, an art historian and a sociologist/historian.

The history of these dioramas is shaped by different elements: The animal objects are integrated into designed environments or landscapes, which in turn are located in a museum.

The set-up and the interventions carried out over the years correspond to a changing understanding of human-animal relations but also of the art-science relationship. Here, practices and tendencies of emotionalisation between living beings (Chichester, 2021, Marvin, 2006, Cart- mill, 2006), as well as changes in object configurations (Rheinberger, 2006, Lange-Berndt, 2009, 2016; Krüger, 2014) play a role. In addition, one cannot leave out the observation that the "dermoplastic staged in a museum reflects bourgeois as well as imperial values and claims to power" (Chichester, 2021). Against this background, the

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Bernese diorama collection must also be understood and examined as being shaped by colonial entanglements and post-colonial discourses.

First and foremost, in our investigation we ask which templates were used for the realization of the exhibition and which models served in the construction and transformation over time.

Hence, the key question is which ideas about the animals shown and the world in which they lived can be inferred from the dioramas. In addition to Bernard and Vivienne von Wattenwyl, who came from a Bernburg patrician family and lived in London, there were numerous other actors who were involved in the construction of the dioramas - hunting, preparing, painting, mediating, etc. - and thus shaped the practices of production, representation and maintenance of the Bern collection to date. *********************************************************************************************************************************

09:45 am Title of Presentation: Questioning the (post)colonial archive of Hans Himmelheber on African art and artists Research Project: Hans Himmelheber - African Art and Entangled Knowledge Production Institution: Museum Rietberg Zürich Speaker(s): Michaela Oberhofer

During an artist-in-residency at the Museum Rietberg Zurich, the Congolese artist Sammy Baloji asked himself: "How do you decolonize yourself?". On the one hand he described his artist approach of deconstructing colonial archives, on the other hand he challenged the museum and its audience to critically reflect on the Western sovereignty of interpretation of (art) history. The artist residency was part of the curatorial concept of the exhibition "Congo as Fiction", which revolved around Hans Himmelheber's 1938/39 journey to the DR Congo.

The exhibition juxtaposed the sometimes contradictory curatorial, scholarly, and artistic perspectives on his colonial archive. The starting point for the interrogation of (post)colonial entanglements was Hans Himmelheber's archive at the Museum Rietberg consisting of objects, texts and photographs. The German art anthropologist undertook numerous trips to Africa and Alaska during the colonial to post-colonial period. His approach to art and the artist remains relevant to the study of Afri- can material culture today. At the same time, however, Himmelheber is controversial for his activities as a collector and dealer.

His archive is at the center of a research project (2018-2023) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The project combines methods and theories on African (art), 6

colonialism, photography and provenance research. The questioning of Himmelheber’s (post)colonial archive takes place not only from a Western point of view, but in close exchange and collaboration with artists, scholars, and museum staff from the Ivory Coast and the DR Congo. The project aims to explore alternative African perspectives, aesthetics, and knowledge systems in the production of knowledge around Himmelheber's archive. The lecture discusses the inter- connections and contradictions of academic, curatorial, and artistic positions in order to reconfigure and reinterpret (post)colonial archives and provenances. This raises the question to which extent the decolonization of knowledge production, as demanded by Sammy Baloji, is possible at all. *********************************************************************************************************

10:00 am Title of Presentation: Collector and Object biographies at Museum der Kulturen in Basel (Namibian Collection) Institution: Centre for African Studies, University of Basel Speaker(s): Maria Randy Mwatondange, Julia Hohn

Abstract The aim of my research project (June 2021-January 2021) was the description of the making, the functions and meanings of the artefacts from collections from Namibia. They comprise 282 artefacts and include weapons, household utensils, clothing, jewellery, ritual devices, music instruments and toys. The descriptions are based on publications from the Museums Association of Namibia and the National Museum of Namibia, institutions that closely cooperate with local communities and groups. Makers and former owners of the artefacts were members of the Herero, Ovambo and San people. Further, I dedicated my research to the reconstruction of the historical circumstances, under which the artefacts have been acquired. Sources of in- formation have been the biographies of collectors, among them are military officers and staff of colonial administration, scientists and travellers, ethnographic and art traders, as well as private collectors. The circumstances of the collection have been diverse and range from gifts to purchases, others were exchanged between museums or public institutions or even have been appropriated by violence. In my contribution to the Workshop, I will focus on objects collected between 1900-1912 and tell their stories and collectors biographies. These accounts of provenance constitute departing points for the analysis of the social and political entanglements of Swiss museums and their role as colonial archives.

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10:15 am Title of Presentation: The BHM LAB: Challenging exhibitions through a postcolonial lens Research Project: BHM Lab Institution: Bernisches Historisches Museum Speaker(s): Aline Minder, Anna-Pierina Godenzi

Exhibitions are manipulative carriers of “truths”. They are always a result of choices and selection processes shaped by individual and social context. Although these curatorial processes are rarely made visible, they can still be seen and discovered in exhibition spaces.

In “Cartography of Colonial Entanglements" focus groups conducted in workshops help us analyse, modify, and document the two permanent exhibitions Cultures in Asia and Oceania and I. – Diversity of Cultures in the Americas, which are both over 15 years old.

Together we address questions such as: Who gets represented in these exhibitions and how? Who has a voice? Where do colonial structures become visible and how does the display (re-)produce the colonial gaze? Time for a first wrap-up.

The project “Cartography of Colonial Entanglements” initiated at the beginning of 2022 is part of a multi-layered process the Museum is conducting on colonialism, racism, and provenance research. It takes place in the BHM LAB. This recently launched initiative pursues two objectives: Methodologically, it aims to break through well-established museum formats such as exhibitions. This should enable us to reflect on our own museum practice in order to spark innovation and to become more agile. In terms of content, the BHM LAB addresses current, socially relevant issues viewed in the mirror of history.

The BHM LAB works collaboratively and involves in-house and outside experts. It opens up spaces for critical questions and active listening. In doing so, the museum expands its experience on two levels. Regarding outreach, the project serves to build relationships with various stakeholders, descendant communities, activists, researchers, artists, etc. Thus, it lays an important foundation for future collaborative projects. At the same time, it initiates an inreach process, triggering discussions and reflections on how we deal with our collections and our exhibition practices. *********************************************************************************************************

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13:45 pm Keynote by Prof. Ciraj Rassool Department of History, University of the Western Cape, South Africa

Confronting colonialisms in South Africa and Germany: Some lessons for Swiss museums?

This presentation is interested to understand the varied ways in which the colonial, colonialism and coloniality has been understood in South Africa and Germany: as period and ‘context’ firmly set in the past; as legacy in the present; as classificatory system; and as enduring relations of power. In arguing that the museum is the fundamental site of empire and coloniality, it also explores the meanings of the post-colonial and the postcolonial, and what a postcolonial and anticolonial museum politics and practice could look like, in South Africa, Germany and in Switzerland. *********************************************************************************************************

Ciraj Rassool is Professor of History at the University of the Western Cape, where he directs the African Museum and Heritage Studies Program. He is an associate member of the Global South Studies Center at the University of Cologne and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Luschan Collection (Berlin).

He has served on the boards of the District Six Museum, Iziko Museums of South Africa, the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), and the National Heritage Council of South Africa. Previously, he chaired the Scientific Committee of the International Council of African Museums and is currently a member of UNESCO's High Level Museums Advisory Committee.

Ciraj Rassool has published widely in the fields of political biography, museum and heritage studies, memory politics, and visual history. Among his latest works figure The Politics of Heritage in Africa: Economies, Histories and Infrastructures (Cambridge University Press, New York 2015), edited in collaboration with Derek Peterson and Kodzo Gavua, and Unsettled History: Making South African Public Past (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2017), written with Leslie Witz and Gary Minkley.

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Workshop 2: Researching, documenting, and communicating colonial provenances

14:45 – 17:30

The great unknowns of ethnographic museum collections and archives are the identities of original, indigenous owners, which in many cases have not been documented by the collectors. The concrete moments of acquisition on site also often remain unknown, which poses great challenges for provenance research today. Missing, blurred or incomplete information, the selective one-sidedness of the represented voices in museum archives, or Eurocentric and racist evaluations in the sources place high normative demands on the documentation and communication of colonial provenances in museums. What conditions and expectations must post-colonial provenance research consider today and what special challenges does it face?

14:45

PRESENTATIONS: RESEARCHING, DOCUMENTING, AND COMMUNICATING COLONIAL PROVENANCES Alice Hertzog, Benin Initiative Switzerland Back and Forths: Collaborative Provenance research on the Benin Bronzes in Switzerland Kim Karlsson, Museum Rietberg Zürich From Suzhou to Zurich via Shanghai and Hong Kong: Dealing with Chinese Paintings.

Karin Kaufmann, North America Native Museum Researching "sensitive objects" – considering and documenting traces of emotions in the archive Aila Özvegyi, Basil Bucher, Nadège Kittel, Museum der Kulturen Basel Actor-Based Provenance Research: Potential and Challenges?

Marina Berazategui, Bernisches Historisches Museum Documenting Absences

16:15

Short Break

16:30

DISCUSSION: RESEARCHING, DOCUMENTING, AND COMMUNICATING COLONIAL PROVENANCES Moderation: Samuel Bachmann

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14.45 pm Title of Presentation: Back and Forths: Collaborative Provenance research on the Benin Bronzes in Switzerland Research Project: Benin Initiative Schweiz Institution: Museum Rietberg Zürich Speaker(s): Alice Hertzog

This paper will present the current findings of the Swiss Benin Initiative. The project brings together eight cantonal and municipal museums in Switzerland that are investigating the provenance of their collections from the Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria – roughly 100 objects.

This paper will present the specificities of this initiative, notably attempts to undertake collaborative provenance research with partners in Nigeria.

The topics raised by the Swiss Benin Initiative form part of broader debates on the restitution of the Benin Bronzes held in European collections, for example in Germany, the UK or France. However, there are also some specificities of the Swiss context, a colonial power without colonies. These include the role of the Swiss art trade and private collectors in the circulation of non-European artefacts and current the absence of restitution claims from Nigeria.

The Swiss Benin initiative builds on the established field of Swiss provenance research, developed in the context of Nazi looted art – but widens the methodological scope, incorporating a more transdisciplinary approach, and unpacking local reckoning with Switzerland's colonial history. In this context, the Swiss-Benin Initiative’s attempts to establish open and transparent cooperation with Nigeria form an important step in response to wider calls to decolonize museum collections. *********************************************************************************************************

15:00 pm Title of Presentation: From Suzhou to Zurich via Shanghai and Hong Kong: Dealing with Chinese Paintings Research Project: Transnational Collecting and Trading of Chinese Painting. Provenance Research on the Charles A. Drenowatz Collection at the Museum Rietberg Institution: Museum Rietberg Zürich Speaker(s): Kim Karlsson

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Since 1979 the Museum Rietberg Zürich is home to one of the finest collections of Chinese paintings in Europe. The Zurich businessman Charles A. Drenowatz (1908–1979) formed his collection of major works from the Ming- and Qing dynasties (1368–1911) in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, Switzerland provided a fruitful environment for his collecting activities. In the post-war decades, a number of important Chinese and European collectors and dealers of Chinese art resided here. Thanks to funds from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, a research project about the provenances of 67 works (scroll paintings, albums, fans), the collector and his networks is carried out between August 2021 and September 2022 at the Museum Rietberg.

Since more than a millennium painting occupies an eminent place in the Chinese art canon.

Works by famous artists were assembled in the great imperial palace collections as well as in private collections of the members of the political and cultural elite. A unique feature of Chinese ink painting is given by the fact that often not only the artists wrote an inscription and impressed their seals on their pictures, but also later owners and connoisseurs. Writings and personal seals added by successive collectors and viewers became a continuously expanding aesthetic and documentary part of the art work. At the same time, these materials furnish valuable information on a painting’s reception history and transmission through time and space.

Many early paintings of the Drenowatz Collection were created in the region around the prosperous and culturally sophisticated city of Suzhou, which was also the center of China’s flourishing art market. In the 19th century China experienced radical social upheaval and was caught up in the two humiliating Opium Wars with Great Britain. In this chaotic era, many historical art collections were dispersed. Countless objects changed hands or entered the mar- ket in Shanghai. By the early 20th century the modern cosmopolitan metropolis, which was largely controlled by the authorities of the imperialist Western powers, had become the country’s focal point for the booming transnational art trade.

Many Chinese intellectuals expressed their concern with the large amount of cultural treasures being sold overseas. In the course of the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949), numerous prominent collectors and art dealers from the mainland sought refuge in Hong Kong. After 1950, the British crown colony thus developed into the most important hub for the lucrative trade in Chinese antiquities. Private collectors, merchants and public collecting institutions from the mainland, Japan, Europe and the United States were attracted to Hong Kong and competed with each other to acquire artifacts. Quite a few pictures in the 12

Drenowatz Collection bear seals of Shanghai and Hong Kong collectors. How they found their way to Zurich remains to be clarified. *********************************************************************************************************

15:15 pm Title of Presentation: Researching "sensitive objects" – considering and documenting traces of emotions in the archive.

Research Project: Digitalization of and Provenance Research in the North American Collection of Gottfried Hotz (1901-1977).

Institution: North America Native Museum (NONAM) Speaker(s): Karin Kaufmann

The provenance research project at NONAM focuses on the North American collection assembled by Gottfried Hotz (1901-1977), a schoolteacher from Zurich and enthusiast of North American Indigenous culture. A majority of the artifacts considered historically and culturally "sensitive" according to the German Museums Association's guidelines for provenance research in colonial contexts (2021) date from Hotz's collecting activities between the 1920s and 1970s. In reviewing the 1200 or so inventory cards on which Hotz retrospectively documented his collection, here and there one stumbles upon expressions of his own feelings or descriptions of other people's emotional reactions. Although these are more subtle hints or traces of such, they point towards troubling, sad, uncomfortable, and sometimes funny moments of encounters and relationships between the collector and the (Indigenous) people from whom he collected. I discovered that somehow I feel the urge to share and discuss these expressions of joy, outrage, anger, compassion and fractions of moving biographies "buried" in the archive – but with whom and how is it appropriate to do so?

By presenting cases, which do not exclusively concern "sensitive objects", I would like to raise the question of how to document and communicate such traces of human feelings – given that at least in our database there is no appropriate field for it (yet). Moreover, I would like to discuss to what extent it can be epistemologically fruitful to attribute greater significance to emotions that occurred during the collection process and, furthermore, to reflect on how the "field" (collection) affects us as researchers. Does an emotional approach offer potential for decolonizing and maybe re-humanizing not only collections and archives but also provenance research? May it strengthen mutual understanding and relationships

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between us and our community partners by building on the foundation of human emotions to which we can all relate? *********************************************************************************************************

15:30 pm Title of Presentation: Actor-Based Provenance Research: Potentials and Challenges?

Research Project: «Who is who» in the collection of the Museum der Kulturen Basel (MKB): networks and contexts of collectors and suppliers.

Institution: Museum der Kulturen Basel Name of Speaker(s): Basil Bucher, Aila Özvegyi, Nadège Kittel

In the past several months, we have intensively researched the collectors and suppliers behind the collection of the MKB, as well as their specific networks and contexts. We analyzed entry books, annual reports, museum commission protocols, correspondences and archival material of former employees as well as already existing research about our collection (Reubi 2011, Cladders 2015, Bozsa 2019, Konrad 2020 etc.). We started grouping people by similar profes- sional or social backgrounds, leisure activities, memberships or common interests. In addition, we brought together individuals who were involved in ‘forbidden trades’, who we believe were directly related to military campaigns, or to events/expeditions that took place under colonial rule. Using this approach while working with our database TMS allows us to draw parallels between individuals who were previously not associated with each other – by doing so, we discover similarities, differences and sometimes astonishing analogies. With just a few clicks, we can see the kind of objects we have received from missionaries, merchants, art traders, geologists, diplomats, hunters, pharmaceutical companies, other museums or family members of former employees. We focused on individuals who did not work directly for the museum but were part of a larger network of former employees who supplied objects to the MKB between 1893 and 1970.

What potential lies in such an actor-based provenance research and what are the limits to it?

This approach allows for a more nuanced view on the MKB’s collecting practices, highlighting the (sometimes systematic) way of consulting and relying on various networks in order to ‘build’ its collection. One assumption is that these ‘figures at the margins’ (“Randfiguren”) may have played a more central role than has been assumed up to now. The museum not only acquired material objects through their suppliers; there was also a transfer of knowledge taking place, which is still visible today in descriptions of or attributions to objects (as on inventory cards or in the database). Challenges include, amongst others,

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1. that there are too many individuals to be able to consider all of them and to go ‘in depth’ with each one, 2. that we often find only hints about them and their roles in our archives.

Based on three examples (family network, oil geologists and art dealers), we will briefly outline such suppliers’ networks and their connection to the MKB. *********************************************************************************************************

15:45 pm Title of Presentation: Documenting absences Research Project: Spuren kolonialer Provenienz.Erforschung ethnografischer Sammlungsprovenienzen anhand des ‘Zeller-Archivs’ am Bernischen Historischen Museum Institution: Bernisches Historisches Museum Speaker(s): Marina Berazategui

Documentation is an essential tool in museum work. Whether in the form of an inventory sheet or as a database, it enables to classify and order the collection. Museum archives (are sup- posed to) also provide information regarding the provenance of objects. In the end, documentation is a necessary condition for researching museum objects and transmitting knowledge on material heritage.

Thus, museum documentation is not a neutral tool. The colonial legacy of museums, in the form of colonial acquisition contexts and knowledge production, is still preserved thanks to Museum documentation. Objects were described in a Eurocentric way and often misinterpreted. The most documented persons are the collectors, generally European white men, who sold or donated objects to the museum. Women collectors are often less well documented. Moreover, the great absentees in museum archives are the indigenous makers, users, and previous owners of the objects. The so-called intermediaries, who helped European collectors set up their collections as translators or informants for example, are also missing. When indigenous previous owners are known by their name, they are generally men with high social status. Mostly, indigenous people are merely described as unknown representatives of an ethnical category.

Therefore, the question arises on how to document provenance research results without reproducing the erasure of persons, who took on fundamental roles within the process of collecting and knowledge production. How can we document the absences? How can we 15

show the missing links and, at the same time, try to fill in the blanks by documenting and naming the missing persons? Further, how do we include the perspectives and the knowledge of formerly colonized persons? To do this, provenance researchers need new documentational tools. In my presentation, I will introduce some examples of the research project Traces of colonial Provenance at the historical museum Bern to discuss both the colonial legacy within museum documentation and possible future solutions for the documentation of provenance research results. *********************************************************************************************************

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