The 2024 program concluded with Ring di Alarm,  also part of the collaborative research chapter of Sustaining the Otherwise, initiated by researches and curators Selene Wendt and Amal Alhaag. In this gathering, we delved into themes such as Memory Work, Navigating Unmapped Archives, and Listening to Everyday Histories. These sessions aimed to explore how artists, designers, thinkers, activists, and communities in Africa and its diasporas imagine and practice epistemological approaches to restitution and the return of knowledge. In what ways can we stretch the notion of restitution to also include complex strategies of reparation to confront the injustices of the present?

The program was a site of study as well as a space for sharing knowledge, practices, materials, and subversive strategies that can function as a  guide through the complexities of the restitution debate(s). In what ways does the discourse around restitution, policy-making, and notions of reparative futures mirror the systemic and structural colonial and racial status quo? It involves a collective effort to understand how to (un)do or shift these dynamics, to foster a nuanced dialogue on the intricate interplay between knowledge, power, and societal structures. With Ring di Alarm, we addressed the restitution debate from pluriversal geographies and positionalities beyond the binary of African and European contexts as a means of exploring what is needed to practice freedom and imagine otherwise.

Participants included Kinsi Abdulleh, Amal Alhaag, Atabey, Quinsy Gario, Sabrine Ingabire, Jackie Karuti, Robert Machiri, Felwine Sarr, James Webb, Selene Wendt and Carine Zaayman.

Wereldmuseum, Leiden, The Netherlands
October 25, 2024