Working bilaterally with museums from across the globe, Digital Benin is an interactive digital archive which displays cultural items that have become physically inaccessible. The project, spearheaded by the Museum am Rothenbaum World Cultures and Arts in Hamburg, Germany, seeks to preserve and distribute tangible cultural heritage from the former Kingdom of Benin which was initially looted by the British Empire during the late-19th century. Foregrounding the right of individuals to freely “participate in the cultural life of the community,” as outlined under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the project was designed to be accessible by the Nigerian public, specifically by the Edo People in the southern portion of the country, who are the historical and cultural inheritors to the Kingdom of Benin. Leveraging state of the art archival methods and 3-D technologies, the project provides an innovative framework of re-accessibility for groups around the world unduly deprived of their cultural artifacts.

Theory of Change

Digital technologies and bilateral negotiations between cultural institutions can help redress grievous historical violations of rights relating to cultural and social heritage.

Activities

Upon entering the site, visitors are presented with eight digital spaces, ranging from a collection of oral histories to a learning space which outlines the functionality of items digitized by the museum. Of particular note is the catalog itself, which provides high resolution photographs and detailed descriptions of each item in the collection. In addition to digitization, much of the project's efforts concern tracing the provenance, or ownership history, of looted items. By researching and detailing the direct line of ownership, which has its roots in a violent colonial history, the organization hopes to foster large-scale international dialogue on what the future of looted artifacts can and should look like.

Results

Digital Benin has brought together 131 museums from over 20 different countries to digitize items hailing originally from the Kingdom of Benin. Through its own research, the project has identified close to 1,000 current and former holders—both institutions and individuals—of disparate works of art, tools, furniture, and other items. Presently, 5,285 objects are part of Digital Benin’s dataset.