The 2025 edition of the Académie des Traces is structured around a series of online seminars. It takes colonial heritage as its point of departure to discuss key contemporary social issues.
The online seminar sessions will take place every Thursday in April 2025. The Académie des Traces brings together international researchers and professionals to encourage exchange between participants from Europe and Africa.The four sessions will successively address the following themes through the prism of colonial heritage:
In 2024, we have built up a network of over 500 people. In 2025, we want to continue this momentum, with a seminar open to all, with the ambition of not only expanding, but also consolidating and perpetuating this network. Our aim is to create a long term infrastructure for exchange and sharing. You can join the network here.Â
The seminar sessions are open to everyone. The seminars are held in English and French, and the plenary sessions are simultaneously translated into both languages. Registration is required for each session.
The aim of the seminar is to shed a plural light on colonial heritage and its multiple relations to the contemporary world. We offer several opportunities for discussion and exchange as part of the seminar, both in plenary sessions and in small groups.
Each session will begin with a brief introduction from the Académie des Traces team. The moderator(s) will present key issues related to the session’s theme Two short presentations by external experts will set the stage for in-depth discussions in smaller groups. Designed to be interactive, each session encourages active participation, meaningful exchanges, and opportunities for participants to connect with one another.
Mikael Assilkinga (Linden-Museum Stuttgart) in conversation with Mahamat Abba Ousman (Cameroon) and Magali Dufau (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès) and online participants.
co-organised with Damiana Oţoiu from the Académie des Traces scientific team.
How are so-called collaborative projects designed? Who are the key players in these projects, and how do they participate? The session (Re)Mediating/Participating explores the dynamics of collaborations between museums and international institutional partners-such as UNESCO or the World Bank-as well as between museums and source communities. A central focus of the discussion will be the forms of (re)mediation and how the outcomes of such projects are communicated. Speakers will share insights from various stakeholders involved in these collaborations, drawing from completed projects to highlight both their successes and challenges. One critical question is whether source communities can truly engage directly with global institutions or whether they require the mediation of intermediary institutions, such as national museums established in various African countries after independence. What kind of mediation is needed, and what are the real implications for participation? TTo what extent can these collaborations be genuinely inclusive, given the nature of the institutions involved?
Biographies
An art historian, MikaĂ©l ASSILKINGA specialises in the history of German colonisation in Cameroon and collections of objects and human remains from this long period of violence. “Cameroonian Objects of Power in German Museums. Meanings and Significances from the Violent Colonial Exploitation to Post-colonial History” is the title of his doctoral thesis, which he defended in 2024 at the Institute for the History of Modern Art at the Technical University of Berlin. He is currently leading a federal project run by the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart on Cameroonian symbols and objects of power in German ethnographic museums. Alongside his research, he is also taking part in the debate on the restitution of Cameroonian cultural property and human remains present on German soil. His scientific publications use a variety of formats, from specialist journals to podcasts. His latest podcast, produced in three languages, is entitled “The untold story of a child from Batibo: undoing German colonialism in Cameroon”.
Magali DUFAU is a museum anthropologist (University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, France), cultural mediator and member of ICOM-Benin and ICOFOM. She works within cultural institutions to apply the tools of anthropology to social transformation, particularly in the sharing and enhancement of heritage. Since 2018, she has been a temporary teaching and research associate in heritage studies (cultural, natural and intangible), postcolonial studies and the epistemology of science (Departments of Anthropology and Visual Arts/Design, University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès). In 2022, she founded the participatory cultural research programme COLL-AB: Collaborations – Collections from Abomey and Benin (Labex SMS, Toulouse, France) in partnership with the Toulouse Natural History Museum. In 2024, it was a prizewinner in the MuseumsLab programme (Germany/Ghana).
Ousman MAHAMAT-ABBA, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Historical, Archaeological and Heritage Sciences at the University of Maroua in Cameroon and expert at ICESCO’s Department of Culture and Communication (Rabat). He is the former Director of the National Museum in YaoundĂ© (Cameroon) and was an intern at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum in 2017 and at the Central Academy of Cultural Administration of China in Beijing in 2018. He is the author of several scientific publications on cultural heritage, museums and cultural tourism.
Salomé Soloum and Carly Degbelo in conversation with Angelo Moustapha (musician, contributor to research projects) and Munyaradzi Elton Sagiya (Bindura University of Science and British Museum) and online participants.
co-organised with Anna Seiderer from the Traces Academy scientific team.
The environment around us is a living expression of both natural and cultural heritage. As we move across the land, we encounter traces of the past that tell the story of our world. This environment is constantly evolving, and the urgency of climate change compels us to rethink our role. Preserving the tangible and intangible traces of our surroundings requires not only conservation and safeguarding but also adaptation. In a world where climate dictates different realities from one place to another, we must strive to develop new conservation methods. This shifting context also challenges us to reconsider our relationship with heritage and the preservation practices long shaped by Western institutions. Our role in protecting our shared home in the face of climate change is undeniable-it calls for a renewal of our theoretical and methodological tools, as well as our practices as conservators and curators. The grounded research of the two speakers contributes to this epistemological, poetic, and political renewal.
Biographies
Born in 1993 in Nikki, Benin, Angelo MOUSTAPHA is a drummer, percussionist, composer and arranger. He soon found himself leading the orchestra “Les pionniers de Savalou”. He won continental acclaim in 2017 when he was named Africa’s best drummer at the Festival des Meilleurs Instrumentistes d’Afrique. He obtained his DiplĂ´me Professionnel de Potentiel, de CompĂ©tence et de CapacitĂ© Intrinsèque in 2017 from the Ecole SupĂ©rieur des MĂ©tiers d’Art et de la Culture (ESMAC HWENDO BĂ©nin). The same year, he collaborated with Belgian director Muriel Verhoeven (Mu). In 2019, he will be collaborating with Belgian jazz guitarist Philip Catherine and his mentor Lionel Loueke. In addition to his personal projects (SOLO, IBIYEWA with Toine Thys, JoĂ«l Rabesolo and Jeremy Debuysschere MACONDO TRIO with Sylvain Debaisieux and Federico Stocchi,…) Angelo also plays in the Lara Rosseel Quartet. He has contributed to choreographic and theatrical creations such as White Box by Sabine Theunissen, Mimi’s Shebeen by Alesandra Seutin and Aro Ile by Awoulath Alougbin. He has contributed to the artistic research project Arts Archives Performances developed by Anna Seiderer and Bronwyn Lace as part of the Labex project – Moving Images, Controversial Memories. He works regularly with William Kentridge and the Centre For The Less Good Idea.
Munyaradzi Elton SAGIYA is an archaeologist (PhD in Archaeology, 2022, University of Zimbabwe). He is a lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Education in Bindura, Zimbabwe. Previously, he worked for 11 years as a curator for the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, based at the Great Zimbabwe World Heritage Site. His research interests include the decolonisation of heritage conservation practices, African archaeology and museology. From October 2024 to June 2025, he is a visiting researcher at the Centre for Advanced Studies inherit. heritage in transformation at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Munyaradzi was a fellow of TheMuseumsLab programme (2022), a visiting scholar at the University of Cologne (2019) and a research associate at University College London-Qatar (2019).
SalomĂ© Soloum holds a PhD in art history from the UniversitĂ© FĂ©lix HouphouĂ«t Boigny in Abidjan (Republic of CĂ´te d’Ivoire). She is an independent researcher whose research focuses on the history of clothing, sexuality and mores in pre-colonial Africa. She is the author and co-author of articles on the customs of the people of Lower Benin from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. She is also co-author of a work on the calabash and co-director of a work entitled Art, coutumes et culture du sud-BĂ©nin (XVIIe-XIXe siècle). SalomĂ© is also interested in the restitution of African heritage in general and Beninese heritage in particular.
Carly Degeblo is a Catholic priest and a conservator of religious heritage. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Heritage Studies, focusing on missionary heritage from the colonial period. His goal is to contribute to the creation of a local museum that is both decolonized—rooted in African culture—and open to international cooperation.
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Adéwolé Faladé (Central European University) and Soizic Le Cornec (musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac) in conversation with Jean-Paul C. Lawson (UMR Heritages-CY Cergy Paris Université) and Julien Faure-Conorton (Musée départemental Albert-Kahn) and online participants.
co-organised with Felicity Bodenstein and Julie Sissia from the Académie des Traces scientific team.
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Digital tools and media have become essential in the collection, conservation and dissemination of tangible and intangible heritage. In particular, they are involved in the process of collecting and creating audiovisual archives and then transmitting them. To what extent does this affect the material collected and presented? Databases are also the main points of access for working on collections, and they shape our relationship with our heritage. In a sense, they can lock us into a grid that obeys the musical logic of classification and naming, which raises critical questions about their structuring and use. So how can we ensure that digital media are open to a plurality of narratives? Do they make it possible to develop alternative discourses to those proposed by museum institutions?
Biographies
Julien FAURE-CONORTON is a historian of photography, in charge of research and the scientific promotion of collections at the Musée Départemental Albert-Kahn (Boulogne-Billancourt, France). With a doctorate in art history and theory, he is a specialist in the Pictorialist movement, to which he has devoted several books and numerous articles. He is currently preparing an exhibition and a book based on a collection of photographs and films taken in Dahomey in 1930. He teaches at the École du Louvre.
AdĂ©wolĂ© FALADE is a doctoral student in history at the Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, Austria. She is studying the restitution process between France and Benin and the new relations that have resulted. Her research also focuses on the methods of reappropriation put in place by the Republic of Benin and the way in which the MusĂ©e du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (Paris) deals with the absence of the objects. She is also a researcher for the ERC-funded artistic research project ‘Repatriates’, for which she examines how contemporary Beninese artists initiate new conversations with returned objects. Since 2016, she has directed a Beninese cultural association (MEWIHONTO) that works to collect, archive, preserve and promote Benin’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
Jean-Paul LAWSON, holds a doctorate in Heritage Studies from CY Cergy Paris UniversitĂ©, under joint supervision with the University of Warwick and the “Humanity, Creation, Heritage” University Research School. He defended a thesis on Digital Conservation, Valorisation and Circulation in heritage contexts in Europe and Africa. He is interested in the use of digital technology in West African museums and offers heritage institutions in this region strategies for integrating digital technology (content, tools, systems) into their museum development policies. He has developed the AFRIKIFA portal, a collection development platform for African heritage institutions, and teaches on the International Culture and Tourism Projects Masters course (Faculty of International and Intercultural Studies) at CY Cergy Paris UniversitĂ©.
Soizic LE CORNEC has been Collections Documentation Officer at the musĂ©e du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac since October 2023. She conducts and coordinates research into the origins of the collections and the biographies of people associated with them. She also works on updating and disseminating online data relating to the history of the institution’s collections. She is also a member of the board of the Collectif pluridisciplinaire de recherche de provenances (CPRP), an association set up in 2023 with the aim of providing a forum for exchange and bringing together those involved in provenance research. She trained in art history at the Ecole du Louvre and in provenance research at the University of Paris-Nanterre.
Injonge Karangwa and Ariane ThĂ©veniaud in conversation with Franck L Wendyam Pacere (freelance) and Vitalice F. Ochieng (Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health – TICAH) and online participants.
co-organised with Margareta von Oswald from the Académie des Traces scientific team
What are health and well-being, and how does heritage interact with these concepts? The relationship between heritage and health is multifaceted. They encompass the physical and material aspects of working with collections, the beneficial effects of contact with cultural assets, and initiatives aimed at the reappropriation of objects by dispossessed communities and contemporary artists. Heritage objects conserved in cultural institutions can carry a toxic charge, linked not only to conservation practices, but also to their history or to the tensions generated by their current social significance. This session aims to discuss these different aspects by examining the collection object as a vector of care or toxicity. What forms of toxicity, material or symbolic, are attributed to them? How do museums diagnose them and deal with them in their access and mediation policies?
Biographies
Injonge KARANGWA is a Rwandan researcher with over ten years’ experience in the design and management of health programmes in sub-Saharan Africa, adopting multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary approaches. She studied communication and management before completing a Masters in Global Health Programme Management at the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda. In 2019, she founded the Hamwe Festival within UGHE, building bridges between health and cultural stakeholders. Within this framework, she has coordinated various initiatives, including film productions, podcasts and research partnerships with museums. Injonge is pursuing a PhD on the relationship between well-being and access to cultural heritage, with a particular focus on the meaning of objects and narratives from African museum collections with a colonial heritage.
Vitalice F. OCHIENG is Head of the Indigenous Knowledge and Cultures Programme at the Kenya-based Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health (TICAH), which focuses on the interconnections between health and culture. He has more than ten years’ experience of managing programmes at national and regional level with three other international organisations: UNESCO, the Lutheran World Federation and Alliance Française. Vitalice Ochieng has also worked and lived with various cultural groups in Kenya and Djibouti and trained in cultural studies at Moi University.
Franck L Wendyam PACERE, is a heritage curator and doctoral student at the UniversitĂ© Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis in Senegal. He is interested in heritage interpretation as a tool and method for territorial development at World Heritage sites. Originally from Burkina Faso, he is in charge of continuing education and teaches at the Ecole du Patrimoine Africain and is a member of the prefiguration committees for the major national museums under construction in Benin at the Agence Nationale des Patrimoine Touristiques (ANPT). He is a lecturer in the Heritage Professions section of the UFR CRAC at the UniversitĂ© Gaston Berger in Saint-Louis and at the École nationale d’administration et de magistrature in Ouagadougou-ENAM. Lastly, he is a national expert responsible for implementing the process of repatriating Burkinabe cultural property.
Ariane THEVENIAUD is a heritage restorer. In 2024, she defended her thesis Traces musĂ©ales, mĂ©moires coloniales. Conservation et restauration de luths non-europĂ©ens du MusĂ©e de la musique (CitĂ© de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris) et du musĂ©e du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (1872-2020). The aim of this thesis is to reposition museum practices in their historical and institutional contexts by examining the effects of patrimonialisation on the material conservation of collections. The material trace thus becomes a witness to the way in which cultural property is viewed, and sheds light on the museum history of collections from colonial contexts at a time when new thinking, driven by debates on their acquisition, is aiming to take ethical responsibility for such cultural property.