German Lost Art Foundation approves around 685,000 Euros for five research projects on colonial contexts in the first application round 2021

Dur­ing the colo­nial pe­ri­od, ob­jects from all over the world ar­rived in Ger­many. Even to­day, cul­tur­al ob­jects from for­mer colo­nial re­gions are still in mu­se­ums or uni­ver­si­ty col­lec­tions – it is of­ten un­clear whether they were ex­changed, bought or loot­ed. In ad­di­tion, there are al­so hu­man re­mains in the in­sti­tu­tions that were brought to Eu­rope, for ex­am­ple, for the pur­pose of an­thro­po­log­i­cal so-called "racial re­search."

In or­der to clar­i­fy where and un­der what cir­cum­stances the ob­jects and hu­man re­mains came in­to Ger­man col­lec­tions, the board of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg has now ap­proved five re­search ap­pli­ca­tions in the area of "Colo­nial Con­texts" in the first ap­pli­ca­tion round 2021 on the rec­om­men­da­tion of its fund­ing com­mit­tee and grant­ed a to­tal of 684,493 Eu­ros in fund­ing. Three of the projects were new­ly ap­plied for, and two al­ready un­der­way will be ex­tend­ed.

One col­lab­o­ra­tive project in Baden-Würt­tem­berg is look­ing at the ori­gins of hu­man re­mains in the state's aca­dem­ic col­lec­tions. They were once re­searched by in­sti­tu­tions and ex­changed among them­selves. Ac­cord­ing­ly, sev­er­al in­sti­tu­tions have now joined forces to pro­cess these hold­ings: The Mu­se­um and Os­te­o­log­i­cal Col­lec­tion of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tübin­gen, the State Mu­se­ums of Nat­u­ral His­to­ry in Stuttgart and Karl­sruhe, and the Lin­den-Mu­se­um in Stuttgart are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the prove­nance of more than 100 hu­man re­mains from Africa.

A col­lab­o­ra­tive project span­ning all of Ger­many is ded­i­cat­ed to a colo­nial area that is of­ten for­got­ten to­day: Loot from Chi­na is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Prus­sian Cul­tur­al Her­itage Foun­da­tion in as­so­ci­a­tion with MARKK Ham­burg, Mu­se­um Fünf Kon­ti­nente Mu­nich, Mu­se­um Ange­wandte Kun­st, Frank­furt am Main, Mu­se­um für Kun­st und Gewerbe, Ham­burg, and Gras­si Mu­se­um für ange­wandte Kun­st Leipzig. Af­ter the sup­pres­sion of the re­sis­tance of the so-called "Box­er Move­ment," thou­sands of cul­tur­al ob­jects were shipped from Chi­na to the Ger­man Re­ich. The mu­se­ums are now re­search­ing whether loot­ed ob­jects from Chi­na are in their hold­ings.

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg, which was found­ed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, the states and lead­ing mu­nic­i­pal as­so­ci­a­tions on Jan. 1, 2015, is Ger­many's cen­tral point of con­tact on ques­tions of un­law­ful­ly seized cul­tur­al prop­er­ty. The Foun­da­tion re­ceives in­sti­tu­tion­al fund­ing from the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Me­dia, from which it al­so re­ceives fund­ing for its projects. The Foun­da­tion's main fo­cus is on cul­tur­al prop­er­ty seized un­der Na­tion­al So­cial­ism, es­pe­cial­ly from Jew­ish own­ers. Since Jan­uary 2019, when the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion was ex­pand­ed to in­clude a de­part­ment for colo­nial con­texts, it has al­so been pos­si­ble to ap­ply for fund­ing for projects deal­ing with cul­tur­al prop­er­ty and col­lec­tions from colo­nial con­texts. Since then, a to­tal of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3.1 mil­lion Eu­ros has been ap­proved for 27 projects in this area.

Ap­pli­ca­tions for longer-term projects can be sub­mit­ted on Jan­uary 1 and June 1 of each year; short-term projects can be ap­plied for at any time. All in­sti­tu­tions in Ger­many un­der pub­lic law that col­lect, pre­serve or re­search cul­tur­al prop­er­ty from colo­nial con­texts are el­i­gi­ble to ap­ply. These in­clude mu­se­ums, uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er re­search in­sti­tu­tions. Since Jan. 1, 2021, ap­pli­ca­tions can al­so be sub­mit­ted by in­sti­tu­tions that are rec­og­nized as non-prof­it and have their head­quar­ters in Ger­many.