The Colonial Collections Consortium

The Colonial Collections Consortium is a joint initiative by Museum Bronbeek, the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the Wereldmuseum and NIOD. The Consortium focuses on the provenance and future of heritage collections that were transported to the Netherlands during the colonial period. It supports provenance research at collection-managing institutions by sharing knowledge, acting as a resource, and providing a network for interested parties.

Supporting restitution policy and stimulating research

Since 2022, an independent advisory committee has advised the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science on applications for the restitution of cultural property that was removed during the colonial period. To date, hundreds of objects have been returned to countries such as Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Nigeria. To support the implementation of this policy on the restitution of cultural goods and to stimulate research, a Colonial Collections Consortium has also been established, separately from the advisory committee.

NIOD’s role in the Colonial Collections Consortium

NIOD participates in the Consortium on the basis of our experience in restitution research relating to the Second World War and our involvement in earlier projects on colonial collections. From our academic and independent standpoint, we aim to contribute to the development of this new research field. Between 2022 and 2025, NIOD coordinated several projects within the Consortium.

Digital research aids for provenance research in colonial collections

NIOD researchers have created a series of dozens of digital research aids to facilitate provenance research on objects and archives in Dutch collections by researchers from lands of origin and the curators of Dutch heritage institutions. Practical research aids provide researchers with information and tips, for example on the main (historical) ethnographic museums and heritage institutions, specific categories of persons, such as missionaries and the military, and general information about carrying out provenance research.

These research aids can be found at the Colonial Collections Datahub of the Colonial Collections Consortium, which makes colonial collections in the Netherlands accessible.

The contact person at NIOD for the Colonial Collections Consortium is Klaas Stutje.

Fellowship programme "Moving objects, Mobilising Culture”

In the period 2022-2025, the Consortium funded a visit by seven researchers to the Netherlands. Historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and artists from various countries of origins spent five months doing research on artefact collections and archives that were acquired during the colonial period and that are currently in the Netherlands. These fellows participated in the fellowship programme of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS), while they were scientifically embedded in NIOD and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV).

Former fellows:

Adrian Perkasa (fellow at NIOD and KITLV in 2023), project title: Leiden as a Black Hole, the 'object-site centred' approach to explore the life-history of Indonesian collections in the Netherlands.
Nadia Ait Said-Ghanem, project title: Cuneiform tablets in Dutch museums and the Iraqi-French antiquities dealer Elias Gejou.
Caroline Fernandes Caromano, project title: (Re)Interweaving past and present, 17th century paintings and the portrayed peoples of Dutch Brazil.
Theo Frids Hutabarat, project title: Reimagining Pustaha, Re-imaging Batak Symbols.
Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka, project title: Transcending Borders: Cultural Mobility in Motion.
Leandro Matthews Cascon, project title: Cultivating Objects: connecting indigenous cassava agriculture of Suriname to its materialities through a study of colonial collections in the Netherlands.
Panggah Ardiyansyah, project title: Evocative Fragments: Archaeological Knowledge Production for Sendang Duwur and Its Dispersed Objects.