Advisory Committee for Guidelines for Collections in Austrian Federal Museums from Colonial Contexts
The important discussion about the way ethnographic, natural history, technical, and art museums acquired their collections also involves Austria's federal museums.
An advisory committee convened by the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport (BMKÖS) has been tasked with developing proposals for political decision-makers concerning how to handle objects from colonial contexts and requests for restitution.
The views of people from civil society around the world, as experts and as individuals affected by the issues raised by cultural heritage from the colonial era in museum collections are important to the process of developing informed recommendations. In order to expand the expertise of the panel and to make the resulting recommendations as sustainable and comprehensible as possible, the committee invited contributions until 31 December 2022 through this website. All contributions were presented to the members of the committee for consideration and discussion.
Committee Members
Dr Jonathan Fine
Scientific director, Weltmuseum Wien (chairman)
Golda Ha-Eiros, MA
Head curator of the Anthropology Collection, National Museum of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia
Dr Emmanuel Kasarhérou
President, musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris, France
Dr Henrietta Lidchi
Head curator, Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Netherlands
Prof. Dr Barbara Plankensteiner
Director Museum am Rothenbaum – Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK), Hamburg, Germany
Univ.-Prof. Dr Walter Sauer
Department of Economic and Social History, University of Vienna
Dr Anna Schmid
Director, Museum der Kulturen, Basel, Switzerland
Dr Katrin Vohland
Director general and managing director, Natural History Museum Vienna
Univ.-Prof. Dr iur. Miloš Vec
Department of Legal and Constitutional History, University of Vienna