ECHANGES. Decolonial Futures in the Museum: Rethinking Collections, Narratives, and Academic Practices

Faculté ALLSH_Campus Schuman_Bâtiment Multimédia_Salle colloque 1

In this lecture Natasha Kelly will introduce the Iwalewahaus, one of Europe’s most significant institutions for contemporary African and
diasporic art. Home to a collection of approximately 15,000 works, the Iwalewahaus represents not only an artistic archive but also a living, evolving space of cultural memory and scholarly inquiry. Since her recent appointment Natasha Kelly has initiated a comprehensive decolonial transformation process which aimed at rethinking how the institution engages with its collections, its publics, and its academic environment.
The talk will explore the collection’s role as a vital resource for students, artists, and international research collaborations. By tracing selected objects through their provenance histories, curatorial trajectories, and contemporary exhibition contexts, it will highlight the pressing ethical, methodological, and institutional questions that arise when working with African and diasporic cultural heritage in European settings. These
include challenges of transparency, restitution, accessibility, and the politics of representation. At the same time, these debates reach far beyond the museum itself: they shape how knowledge is produced, translated, narrated, and circulated across disciplines—particularly in the humanities, where questions of language, literature, and cultural expression intersect with broader social and epistemic transformations.
Ultimately, the lecture invites the audience to consider the Iwalewahaus not only as a museum or research center, but as a dynamic contact zone in which artistic practice, academic dialogue, and decolonial critique converge.

Natasha A. Kelly holds a doctorate in communications studies and sociology, and specialises in (post) colonialism and feminism. Born in London and raised in Germany, she regards herself as an « academic activist », always combining theory and practice. She expresses this both in and throught the arts. In addition, she has taught at numerous private and public institutions in Germany, Austria, and the USA and has been activie in the black community for many years.