THE RESEARCH
Provenance research
Provenance research examines how objects arrived in museums, often in violent contexts such as colonialism. The (Tr)african(t)s project investigates collections from the late Spanish Empire to make these stories visible and to encourage debate on restitution, to highlight their connection to the colonial past.
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Provenance research
Provenance research examines the history of objects, including how they were collected, acquired, and sometimes stolen, and how they have subsequently become items in museums around the world. This type of research aims primarily to shed light on processes often forgotten or deliberately removed from museum narratives where, all too often, objects are exhibited out of context, removed both physically and metaphorically from the paths that brought them to the institution. Provenance research reconstructs these paths by analysing the changes of possession and ownership that occurred from the creation of the object to its inclusion in the collections.
The concept and methodologies of provenance research have been developed and improved over the last thirty years, especially after the establishment of the Washington Principles in 1998. These principles were adopted by museums and several states, which committed themselves to researching their collections to explore possibilities of restitution to the rightful owners or institutions, especially in the case of objects confiscated during the Nazi era. Since then, provenance research has expanded to include objects acquired in potentially violent contexts, such as colonial ones.
The (Tr)african(t)s project aims to recover the forgotten histories of objects and specimens held by Catalan public museums. This research focuses on collections linked to the late Spanish Empire on territories that today form part of the states of Equatorial Guinea, the Kingdom of Morocco, and the Republic of the Philippines. In addition to making visible the violence associated with the acquisition of these objects and encouraging debate on possible restitution and colonial reparations, the project also aims to generate new knowledge about collections, colonial science, and other relevant aspects of the history and political economy of the museums.
Despite the misperception that provenance research decolonizes museums, in reality its main function is to make visible their inextricable relationship to the colonial context and its discourses. To understand this context, it is often necessary to bring powerful figures—mostly white European men, such as collectors, colonial administrators, and ethnologists—back into the foreground. Nevertheless, provenance research is also obliged to broaden the perspective, incorporating alternative knowledge and collaborating with experts from around the world to pave the way for a true decolonization of museums and collectively rethink their futures. This is why methodological reflection is of such importance in our research.
Despite the misperception that provenance research decolonizes museums, in reality its main function is to make visible their inextricable relationship to the colonial context and its discourses.
Warning about the categories used in this provenance search
The (Tr)african(t)s. Museums and collections of Catalonia in the face of coloniality project aims to carry out provenance research on some of the most important collections of colonial origin in Catalonia, in particular those linked to the late Spanish empire. On the peoples and territories that are now part of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, the Kingdom of Morocco and the Republic of the Philippines. The scientific objective, with an unequivocal social and political commitment, is to expand knowledge about these collections, and about the way in which they were acquired by the institutions that now custodian them, in order to promote all those reparation policies that the various actors and actresses involved (groups that are part of the so-called “original communities” or diasporas in Europe, memory associations, heritage institutions of the former colonies, as well as the general public) consider necessary.
Through this platform you can access a first selection of pieces and specimens that have been the subject of provenance research. It is worth noting, first of all, that the research remains open to new findings that may enrich the knowledge accumulated about the piece or specimen and/or contribute to clarifying the circumstances of its arrival in the collection and institution that currently holds it, and which may therefore be the subject of updates.
It is possible that some of the terms applied to these ethnographic objects and biological specimens, as well as some of the associated information, may arouse controversy regarding their meaning and the relationship they maintain with the reality they seek to describe. Many of these terms, as well as the information that accompanies them, are the result of the same colonial context that made their acquisition possible, and therefore may entail stigmatizing aspects, generate emotional tensions and thus be offensive to the communities that produced them, to diasporas or to a public sensitive to their exclusionary effects.
In the case of the photographs that appear on the page, from colonial expeditions, it has also been chosen in most cases to blur and hide faces or other sensitive parts of the bodies of the people portrayed. The conditions of capture of the images, the formation of colonial photographic archives and the open debates about their use in the present, are issues that also cross our work.
We want to make it clear that these terms and information do not represent the point of view of the (Tr)african(t)s team. The project defends and supports anti-colonial positions, and aims to contribute to the fight against ethnic, racial and gender discrimination and in favor of the recognition of the individual and collective rights of the peoples who produced these objects and specimens (as well as their descendants). We therefore invite readers to situate the reports in the colonial framework that gives meaning, but in no way justifies, the terms and information collected.
The search for provenance is, by its nature, a conflicting task, insofar as, in order to trace over time the trajectory followed by the objects and specimens it analyzes, it must make use of necessarily biased categories used by donors, sellers, collectors and institutions that have custody of them. These categories are unavoidable as support for historical and ethnographic research (at least at the beginning of the research process), but it is also true that in doing so, we inevitably contribute to its reproduction. In this sense, we invite the reading public to interpret the system of classification and description used in this reservoir, based primarily on the inventory and collection numbers of the museums themselves, precisely as an expression of the will of the (Tr)african(t)s team to highlight the unequivocally colonial nature of these forms of classification.
As we have indicated, it seems essential to apply a critical perspective on these terms, and the (Tr)african(t)s team carries out this critique in its scientific initiatives and public interventions. For this reason, the reports to which you will access, which make a genealogical use of these problematic categories, are accompanied by a series of ethical and epistemological warnings. At the same time, adopting a collaborative perspective, we invite anyone interested in correcting or clarifying information to contact us through the following email address: comunicacio@trafricants.org.