The Smithsonian is leading by example by agreeing to return its collection of Benin Kingdom Court Style artworks to their homeland in Nigeria.
The groundbreaking move by the world’s largest cultural organisation could set a new bar for how museums respond to changing attitudes about cultural heritage and the legacy of colonial violence.
The repatriation of the 39 priceless artworks is the cornerstone of an agreement that could be signed as early as next month, the head of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments told The Washington Post. It includes provisions for long-term loans, shared exhibitions and education programs in Nigeria. The deal reflects a fundamental change in the Smithsonian’s collecting practices.
The Smithsonian will return works that it has legal title to own but that are linked to an infamous British raid on Benin City in 1897. Almost half of the collection had been on view at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. Once they are shipped to Nigeria — at the Smithsonian’s expense — they will be displayed at the National Museum of Benin in Benin City.
The agreement represents a significant milestone in the global effort to repatriate looted objects to Nigeria, Abba Isa Tijani, director general of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments said. Tijani hopes other countries and institutions will follow its model.
“I commend the Smithsonian,” Tijani said. “We have not encountered another museum that has done as much.”
The Smithsonian will give up ownership of the works, which were mostly donated and came into the collection over many years. The agreement calls for at least some pieces to return to Washington on long-term loan in an exhibition the Nigerians will curate, Tijani said
This exhibition will be from the perspective of Nigeria and how we want them to be displayed,” he said, adding that the Smithsonian has pledged to fund education programs for young Nigerians. “What is more important than being in control of how your heritage, your artifacts, are displayed?”
The agreement with the Nigerian commission will be the first repatriation under the Smithsonian’s new policy of ethical returns that calls for its museum leaders to consider the moral circumstances surrounding the ownership of the 155 million artworks, artifacts and natural science specimens in its collection. The institution expects to revise its collections directive in April. The Smithsonian Board of Regents must approve the deaccessioning of the objects before they can be returned to Nigeria.
The decision follows years of protests that called on museums to acknowledge their difficult histories, including their roles in the looting of former colonized lands, and to adapt their policies to address racism and other harms.
The field has responded, but slowly. In November, the Metropolitan Museum of Art returned three works to the Nigerian commission and committed to future collaboration. Institutions in Britain, Germany and France have also started to return works, Tijani said.
National Museum of African Art Director Ngaire Blankenberg described the repatriation as the first step in the art museum’s effort to shed its Eurocentric past and forge a new model for a global audience. Last fall, Blankenberg removed the artwork from the galleries, a move Tijani described as “respectful.”
“This is about a new possibility. The repatriation is about past violence and harm,” Blankenberg said last week. “I don’t believe it ends there. We have to stop the harm and imagine a new way of working, of how we can do this differently together.”
Blankenberg said the new partnership is built on the Smithsonian’s relationship with Nigerian cultural agencies that began in 2015. It will help to transform the African art museum into a vibrant space that connects these treasures of the past to the present and future.
