Mati Diop’s reparative cinema
In 'Dahomey,' Mati Diop reimagines restitution, using surrealist cinema to revive looted African artifacts and amplify youth-led calls for decolonization.
Benin
The aftertaste of the ocean
Mati Diop’s 'Dahomey' isn’t solely concerned with the subject of repatriating Beninese artifacts, but with returning the debate to the Beninese themselves.
A kingdom’s ransom
Although films like 'The Woman King' offer us a small glimpse into the past, they cannot give us the full story.
Detained and deported
Journalism has become a risky and dangerous business in Benin.
Did dependency theorists really ignore culture?
Must indigenous knowledge be science to be valid? Philosopher Paulin J. Hountondji shows that we must ask why Africa is scientifically and technologically dependent in the first place.
Against a willing amnesia
Two books, by art historian Bénédicte Savoy and journalist Barnaby Phillips respectively, detail how we got to this point in the restitution of African heritage.
International thief thief
There can no longer be false justifications for holding Benin Bronzes, and other pilfered materials, in museums outside of Africa.
The specter of Mannetjies Roux
An encounter on a cross continental flight with white South African men and their ways, by Robina Marks, a black woman and South Africa’s ambassador in Benin.
What comes after art repatriation
We all want to see Africa's heritage repatriated to the continent. But what happens after it returns?
The Museum of Black Civilizations
France no longer has an excuse to hold on to Senegal's cultural heritage. Senegal has a place for it.
The artist as citizen
An interview with Abdellah Karroum is the artistic director of the Biennale Regard Benin 2012, which premise is “Inventing the World: the Artist as Citizen.”
If dolls never die, neither does their past
The artist Gérard Quenum's work suggest that society’s collective bad parenting and maltreatment cannot ever, completely ransack the spirit.