Students on the Master's degree programme in Cultural Education and Cultural Management at the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences explored this question during a visit to a museum in Professor Andris Breitling's seminar "Media Research: Postcolonialism and Literature".
The excursion to the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum "Kulturen der Welt" in Cologne focussed on current issues relating to restitution and provenance research as well as postcolonial museum work.
In her guided tour, ethnologist and museum educator Hanna Petri-Böhnke not only provided practical insights into her day-to-day work, but also responded in detail to the students' questions.
The special exhibition "I MISS YOU" on the restitution of the so-called Benin bronzes, which were looted by British troops from the royal palace of the pre-colonial kingdom of Benin in what is now Nigeria in 1897, made it particularly clear how closely museum work today is linked to intensive international exchange and the critical reflection of one's own thought patterns. In the course of the tour, post-colonial themes were linked with questions relating to curation and mediation.
For the students, the excursion offered application-oriented insights into current museological issues. This revealed the importance of cultural education work: Making blind spots in historical contexts visible and creating spaces for a critical examination of the colonial past.
