Pressing Matter has investigated the potentialities of ‘colonial objects’ to support societal reconciliation with the colonial past and its afterlives, and to deal with conflicting claims by different stakeholders for these objects within museums.
Pressing Matter is a four-year international research programme about colonial heritage and its legacies, financed by the Dutch National Science Agenda (NWA) and coordinated from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
The two-day conference is preceded by the Brainwash Special event with Achile Mbembe at the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam on Wednesday 26 November from 19:00 to 22:00.
- Partners are the Wereldmuseum, Museum Bronbeek, Museum Vrolik, Rijksmuseum, the museums of Utrecht University and University of Groningen, Foundation Academic Heritage and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. All in the Netherlands.
- Societal partners are Imagine IC, The Black Archives, HAPIN Papua Support Foundation, the Rijksacademie, Framer Framed and the Peace Palace Library, the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands and DutchCulture, also in the Netherlands.
- International partners have been: Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Museum Nasional, Indonesia; Center for Anthropological Research of Museums and Heritage (CARMaH), Germany; Pitt Rivers Museum, GB.
