Colonial Acquisitions with Klaas Stutje (and Jona Mooren)

The Newsletter, our flagship publication that comes out three times a year, has an issue coming out in June 2022. As part of that edition, we’re very pleased to have a special section guest edited by Jona Mooren and Klaas Stutje. The section will include a collection of essays that grew out of something called PPROCE, or the Pilotproject Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era. The project was carried out under the direction of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in collaboration with other institutions, including the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the National Museum of World Cultures. The project formally began in November 2019 with the goal of researching the provenance of various colonial artifacts and acquisitions. It concluded in March 2022 with a series of detailed provenance reports as well as formal recommendations about restitution and repatriation. On March 17, 2022, the PPROCE project presented their final report ­to government officials at an event in the Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden. Unfortunately, Jona, a leader of the project, was ill and unable to attend. But Klaas gave brief introductory remarks that we would like to play here in anticipation of their forthcoming Focus section in The Newsletter. In his statement, Klaas introduces the various dimensions of the project and the challenges it entailed. The project’s final report, “Clues: Research into provenance history and significance of cultural objects and collections acquired in colonial situations,” is also freely available to the public in Dutch, English, and Bahasa Indonesia.

We’re very excited for the forthcoming special section co-edited by Jona and Klaas, and we hope that our listeners will read the case studies when the issue comes out in June. Until then, this episode features the introductory remarks made by Klaas at the March 17 event.