Museum of Looted Antiquities (Mola)

Although there is no lack of information on individual repatriated works, the larger picture of where they came from and how, who is returning them and why can be lost in the anecdotes. This is where the Museum of Looted Antiquities (Mola) comes in—a new digital platform that traces not only the histories of specific repatriated objects but also compiles metadata in order to better understand smuggling networks and the museum industry’s intensifying repatriation efforts.

Jason Felch, Museum of Looted Antiquities: “It’s about disrupting trafficking networks and making it more difficult for them to operate. I’ve been collecting repatriation data for nearly 20 years, and I thought it should be a public database,” the founder of Mola tells The Art Newspaper. “It’s a labour of love for me.”

Felch was a longtime investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a co-author of the 2011 book Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum. “I was writing about repatriation all the time and wanted to go from the anecdotal to analysing data and understanding trend lines.”