Kenya: International Inventories Programme – artworks between worlds

Dennis Opudo, Head of the Anthropological Department of the Nairobi National Museum, in the Museum's Ethnographic Collection | Photo (detail): Gioia Forster © picture alliance The “International Inventories Programme” (IIP) is an international research, database and exhibition project that focuses on Kenyan artefacts that have been held in museums and collections outside the country since colonial times.

This global inventory aims to research the number of Kenyan artefacts and the history of their acquisition, and make this information transparent.

In addition to the scientific recording of the artefacts, it is also a concern of how Kenyan cultural assets that are in the possession of cultural institutions in Europe and the USA can be made accessible in Kenya. Artists, museum professionals and researchers from the participating countries will collaborate to examine the “translocation” of significant objects from Kenya to Europe. The exhibition will explore which stories the objects tell and what meaning they have for the societies in Kenya and Europe.

The results of this artistic exploration process – the production of new artworks – will be exhibited in 2021 in the Kenyan National Museum, in the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne, and in the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt a.M..

The exhibition project “Invisible Inventories” is sponsored by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.