Decolonial Futures in the Museum

In this lecture Natasha Kelly (Professor for Global African Arts at University of Bayreuth) will introduce the Iwalewahaus, one of Europe’s most significant institutions for contemporary African and diasporic art. Home to a collection of approximately 15,000 works, the Iwalewahaus represents not only an artistic archive but also a living, evolving space of cultural memory and scholarly inquiry. Since her recent appointment Natasha Kelly has initiated a comprehensive decolonial transformation process which aimed at rethinking how the institution engages with its collections, its publics, and its academic environment.

The talk will explore the collection’s role as a vital resource for students, artists, and international research collaborations. By tracing selected objects through their provenance histories, curatorial trajectories, and contemporary exhibition contexts, it will highlight the pressing ethical, methodological, and institutional questions that arise when working with African and diasporic cultural heritage in European settings. These include challenges of transparency, restitution, accessibility, and the politics of representation.

At the same time, these debates reach far beyond the museum itself: they shape how knowledge is produced, translated, narrated, and circulated across disciplines—particularly in the humanities, where questions of language, literature, and cultural expression intersect with broader social and epistemic transformations.
Ultimately, the lecture invites the audience to consider the Iwalewahaus not only as a museum or research center, but as a dynamic contact zone in which artistic practice, academic dialogue, and decolonial critique converge. By reflecting on ongoing institutional change, I hope to open a conversation about the responsibilities and possibilities that emerge when we collectively reimagine the future of cultural institutions in a global, interconnected world.

Avec : Prof. Dr. Natasha A. Kelly (Université de Bayreuth/Iwalewahaus)
Modération : Fanny Robles (Aix-Marseille Université)
Organisée par Aix-Marseille Université, Litterallea, le Goethe-Institut et la Heinrich Böll Stiftung Paris

Bâtiment Multimédia - Salle de Colloque 1
Campus Schuman, Aix-Marseille Université
29, av. Robert Schuman 
Aix-en-Provence
France