Arts and the Study of the International | Figure for the Issue

Arts and the Study of the International

Screening of Mati Diop’s 2024 film Dahomey at the CDHM (February 2025)

In February 2025, the CDHM hosted a screening of Mati Diop’s 2024 film Dahomey, a documentary following 26 objects from the former Kingdom of Dahomey as they leave Paris and are returned to present-day Benin. The screening was followed by a panel discussion on the “Diplomacy of Restitution: Issues of Knowledge and Powers”. Participants included leading academics, diplomats, curators and writers active in both Benin and Europe. Co-chaired by Doreen Mende, Director of Research of the State Art Collections in Dresden and Prof. Mallard, the discussion explored issues around how stolen art treasures can be received in a country which has reinvented itself in their absence. The panel covered themes ranging from the making of the film and panellists’ personal experiences of restituting archives to methods of postcolonial digitisation and digital archiving. Leading up to the event was a seminar for students at HEAD – Genève on collaborative projects on provenance research between African and Western researchers. A special session, “Within me resonates infinity”, based on the film, was held at the Museum of Ethnography Geneva (MEG) for students of HEAD – Genève and IHEID. Through the organization such multi-facetted events with a diversity of actors from different backgrounds, the CDHM hopes to break disciplinary and institutional boundaries, placing the Institute at the forefront of pedagogy on multilateralism.

Grégoire Mallard

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Arts and the Study of the International

Screening of Mati Diop’s 2024 film Dahomey at the CDHM (February 2025)

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