Irrestitutable: Inquiries into Hauntings of Absent Cultural Heritage
Amidst the ongoing armed conflicts and uprisings erupting in the global south, the transnational movement of art objects and humans from the MENA region to Europe has taken center stage in mass and social media, and in political debates. In the aftermath of the so-called “refugee crisis,” museums housing art from the MENA region have become sites of poignant encounters between the newcomers and objects extracted from the very places that the refugees identify as their “home” and where they endured the harrowing events of war, terror, destruction, and expulsion. This research is preoccupied with human-object relations and delves into how the dramatic events of destruction and looting of artifacts influence restitution debates within the communities of the regions that are subject to extraction and dispossession. The project explores how the layers of absence caused by the dislocation, looting, and destruction of objects manifest in the urban environments, in archival documents and cultural institutions, as well as in the experiences of locals, emigrants, scholars, and others in Europe and the Middle East. The investigation analyses the transformations in narratives around restitution and the failures of endeavors to fill the gap left behind by the absence. The project also studies the articulations of various communities and stakeholders in perceiving these cultural objects before and after their dispossession or destruction. It raises questions as: To which extend is the loss articulated, even if this loss and dispossession are only partial? What kind of specters are invoked, produced, or forgotten when debating the restitution of what is – at heart – irrestitutable?