The ongoing debates around decolonizing the museum have not only taken on dominant regimes of representation but have also increasingly interrogated the material basis of the museum.  The ways in which collections have been accumulated and subsequently mobilized in the knowledge production on cultural heritage are under ever more scrutiny, and rightly so. The struggles for the restitution of artworks and historical objects have been pivotal in these developments, and, perhaps for the first time, in the wake of the global Black Lives Matter Movement/Movement for Black Lives have been able to galvanize broader publics in favor of acts of return. While some high profile restitutions from European institutions have been celebrated in the realm of diplomacy, the larger political conditions and legal frameworks within which current acts of return are conducted are still in need of critical examination. At the same time the idea of the universal or encyclopedic museum continues to retain its power, be it in national or international politics. It does so by trying to recuperate the language of decolonization and of “diversity” in ways that seem to indicate a shift from the paradigm of “preserving the past” to one of “preserving the museum” itself. Indeed, we are witnessing the simultaneous  acceleration of restitution demands and of the integration of the terminology of decolonization into European cultural policies, in ways that stabilize both geopolitical power relations as well as the institution of the museum in its modern form.

Taking restitution as a vantage point, the BEYONDREST event series examines not only this shift but explores how restitution holds the potential to transform the very ways of producing knowledge on cultural heritage and art, both inside and outside the museum. Interrogating how the “preservation paradigm” is mobilized in different scholarly, political, and social practices surrounding cultural heritage, the invited speakers offer conceptual contemplations on dispossession and inheritance as well as the ways in which conceptions of ownership and property shape those of cultural heritage and of provenance. In different formats and drawing on neighboring disciplines, the event series proposes new readings  of the laws and legal provisions that are supposed to protect and preserve cultural heritage. The guest lectures, panels, and screenings  offer inquiries into how ongoing restitution debates are currently shaping the fields that contribute to the knowledge production on cultural heritage, such as archeology, art history, history, anthropology, cultural studies, critical theory, and museum studies. They also examines how restitution debates are mobilized in national contexts and authoritarian fields. We hope to open up space for discussing the limitations and possibilities that archival research offers in efforts to transform knowledge production. Together, we aim to explore and imagine different ways of knowledge-making in the complex of cultural heritage from perspectives that are committed to decolonization.

All Events of the Conversation Series:

25 June 2025, 4 pm | Alia Mossallam (EUME Fellow 2017-25): When the Subaltern is Forced to Speak: Colonial Knowledge Production Projects, Their Afterlives and the Im/Possibility of Historical Justice. The Case of the Berlin Lautarchiv, Chair: Banu Karaca (PI BEYONDREST), This event is also part of the Berliner Seminar and takes place at Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin and via Zoom. 

4 June 2025, 5 pm | Zoya Masoud (BEYONDREST): Dislocation and Heritage: On Radical Hope and Experiences of Loss in Aleppo/Syria, Chair: Çiçek İlengiz (BEYONDREST), This event is also part of the Berliner Seminar and takes place at Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin and via Zoom. 

04 Dec 2024, 3 pm |  Displacing to Preserve: (Dis)Possession and the Politics of Heritage in Egypt - film screening of Areej – Scent of Revolution by Viola Shafik, followed by a conversation with Banu Karaca and Çiçek İlengiz. This event is also part of the Berliner Seminar and takes place at Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin.

28 Nov 2024, 1.30 pm | Online Film Screening of Khabur (Xabûr), followed by a discussion with the director Nafis Fathollahzadeh, moderated by Çiçek İlengiz (BEYONDREST), in cooperation with Allegra Lab. 

24 Oct 2024, 2.30 pm | Panel Discussion The Legal Aspects of Heritage Preservation and Restitution with Stephan Dömpke (Founding Chairmean and Executive Director at Wold Heritage Watch), Anisha Patel (PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law at Europa-University Viadrina and Governing Council member at Law for Palestine), and Sophie Schönberger (Professor of Public Law, Art and Cultural Law, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf), moderated by Banu Karaca (BEYONDREST) and Çiçek İlengiz (BEYONDREST).

13 June 2024, 5 pm | Sebastian Willert (Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture - Simon Dubnow): Relics of the Past in Conflict. Violence, War, and Monument Preservation in the Ottoman Realm, Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin.

15 May 2024, 5 pm | Ammar Azzouz (British Academy Research Fellow / University of Oxford): Erased City: Imagining a Future Without Ruins?, Chair: Anne-Marie McManus (SYRASP), Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin. The event is also part of the MECAM Workshop Cities in the Arab Imagination: Fiction, Reality, and Futurescapes.

25 Apr 2024, 5 pm | Online Film Screening of Scenes of Extraction, followed by a discussion with the artist Sanaz Sohrabi and Alia Mossallam (EUME Fellow).

25 Jan 2024, 6 pm | Elyse Semerdjian (Clark University): Bone Memories: The Armenian Genocide and the Radical Possibility of Solidarity, Chair: Veronika Zablotsky (Freie Universität Berlin), Café Arakil, Berlin.

14 Dec 2023, 5 pm | Regina F. Bendix (Universität Göttingen): Cardboard Boxes: The (In)Visivility of Human Remains and their Mobilizing Potential, Chair: Çiçek İlengiz (BEYONDREST), Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin.

25 Oct 2023, 5 pm | Çiçek İlengiz (BEYONDREST): Inheriting Anatolia: Representation, Knowledge Production and Imagination, Chair: Filiz Tütüncü Çağlar (EUME Fellow 2020-24 / Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin), Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin. The event is also part of the EUME Berliner Seminar winter term 2023/24.  

18 Oct 2023, 5 pm | Pascale Ghazaleh (American University in Cairo): Archives, Heritage and Discontent: Who Owns Egypt's Past?, Chair: Banu Karaca (PI BEYONDREST), Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin. The event is also part of the EUME Berliner Seminar winter term 2023/24.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This work is supported by ERC grant BEYONDREST 10.3030/101045661