Pressing Matter

Pressing Matter investigates the potentialities of ‘colonial objects’ to support societal reconciliation with the colonial past and its afterlives [in an international context], and reconcile conflicting claims by different stakeholders for these objects within museums. The project will develop and tests new models ofownership, value and return that may enable more equitable futures

The project will connect fundamental theories of valuation and property to postcolonial debates on heritage to these societal debates and aims to develop and test, first, new theoretical models of value and ownership and, second, new forms of return that address but move beyond current approaches to heritage restitution, while developing a theory of object potentialities grounded in the entangled, multipolar histories in which colonial objects were collected, kept and made meaningful. 

It's "Digital Traces" work package will investigate new models and methods for acquisition, representation and presentation of polyvocal knowledge and data related to provenance research in the context of colonial heritage.