Symposium: “TRANCEcolonial. Performing Provenance – Art, Memory and Colonial Resonances”
© Hervé Youmbi, Les masques célèstes, 2017. Acquired with the generous support of Yasmine & Peter König, LWL-Museum f. Kunst und Kultur.

On 10 November 2026, the one-day symposium “TRANCEcolonial. Performing Provenance – Art, Memory and Colonial Resonances” will take place. It is organised jointly by the Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change” and the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster, as part of the international research project “Performing Provenance: Contemporary Art, Digital Spaces, and Things from the Cameroon Grasslands” (PERFORM).

Venue: Auditorium, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur Münster, Domplatz 10, 48143 Münster.

Registration: Until 6 November 2026 at kfg.zugang@uni-muenster.de. 

Concept and scientific organisation: Marlene Knut (LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster), Prof. Dr. Ursula Frohne and Jolanda Saal-Basar (Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”, Münster)

The symposium will be held in English and French. Interpretation will be provided from French into English and from English into French. Handouts in German will also be provided.

The one-day symposium explores colonial provenance, historical experiences of violence and museums’ responsibilities today from artistic, scholarly and  museological perspectives. On the occasion of the symposium, the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur in Münster will bring a work by Hervé Youmbi, an artist from Cameroon, into dialogue with objects from its collection. The event in Münster opens a series of events initiated as part of the international research project PERFORM. Further events will take place as part of the exhibition return at the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne on 12–13 November 2026.

In the exhibition space, Youmbi’s work “Les masques célèstes”, created for Skulptur Projekte Münster in 2017, will be presented for the first time alongside the medieval Bockhorst Triumphal Cross, an important testament of Christian traditions of faith and imagery. The masks will also enter into dialogue with two objects from the collection of the Forum der Völker in Werl, which was transferred to the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL). This constellation brings into resonance different religious, cultural and historical systems of meaning. At the heart of this transcultural presentation are experiences of dispossession, violence, memory and trauma that museums often leave unaddressed when presenting objects from colonial contexts. Together, the installation on display and contributions from artists, scholars and museum experts invite us to examine colonial object histories from a contemporary perspective. Artistic and performative practices offer new ways of engaging with these histories: they expose gaps and open up possibilities for perceiving meanings, relationships and affects that have previously been obscured and overlooked.

Contributors

  • Nina Baudonnière (École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris)
  • Dr. Ruth Colette Afane Belinga (Artist, University of Ebolowa, Cameroon)
  • Marlene Knut (LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster)
  • Yohannes Mulat Mekonnen (University of Bonn, Global Heritage Lab, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne)
  • Dr. Sylvia Necker (LWL-Preußenmuseum, Minden)
  • Joyce Noufélé (Volkshochschule Osnabrück)
  • Julie Peghini (Paris 8 University) 
  • Prof. Dr. Ursula Frohne (Professor of Modern Art History, University of Münster / Co-Director, Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”, Münster)
  • Jolanda Saal-Basar (Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”, Münster)
  • Zora Snake (Artist, Compagnie Zora Snake, Cameroon)
  • Hervé Youmbi (Artist, Cercle Kapsiki, Douala, Cameroon)
  • Joël Zouna (École normale supérieure de Paris – PSL |  TU Berlin | Institut national d’histoire de l’art – INHA)

Programme

Tuesday, 10 November 2026

11:00 am
Welcome 
Dr. Hermann Arnhold (Director, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster)

11:15 am
Introduction
Julie Peghini (Anthropologist, film-maker and lecturer, Paris 8 University), Prof. Dr. Ursula Frohne (Professor of Modern Art History, University of Münster / Co-Director, Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”, Münster), Jolanda Saal-Basar (Junior Fellow, Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”, Münster), Marlene Knut (Provenance researcher, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster) 

11:30 am
The Werl Collection. A valuable addition or another man's child?
Dr. Sylvia Necker (Director, LWL-Preußenmuseum, Minden)

12:00 am
Topologies of the Sacred: Missionary Collections and the Ordering of Spiritual Worlds
Yohannes Mulat Mekonnen (Fellow, Global Heritage Lab, University of Bonn)

12:30 am
Lunch break

1:15 pm
Artist Lecture
Hervé Youmbi (Visual artist, Cercle Kapsiki, Douala, Cameroon | Artist-in-Residence, Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”)
Chair: Dr. Marianne Wagner (Curator, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster), 

01:45 pm
Panel Discussion
Dr. Ruth Colette Afane Belinga (Lecturer and artist, University of Ebolowa, Cameroon | Senior Fellow, Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”), Zora Snake (Artist, Compagnie Zora Snake, Cameroon), Hervé Youmbi 
Chair: Joël Zouna (PhD candidate, École normale supérieure de Paris – PSL & TU Berlin, Research Fellow, Institut national d’histoire de l’art – INHA)

2:45 pm
UN SERPENT AU MUSÉE
Video work based on the performance at Forum der Völker, Werl
Zora Snake, 2026
Followed by a get-together