In an effort to take stock of Namibia's artefacts translocated to Germany, Switzerland, and Austria during the colonial occupation, the German Lost Art Foundation has set up a pilot project to educate the world about Namibia's cultural heritage and lay the necessary groundwork for others to build on.

As part of the project, Finding Aid launched a publication titled "Locating Namibian Cultural Heritage in Museums and Universities in German-speaking Countries. A Finding Aid for Provenance Research" 

The publication compiles information on 39 institutions that have acquired close to 20,000 pieces of tangible cultural heritage produced in Namibia over a period of more than 150 years. 

The publication is a collaboration between the Ministry of Education, Arts, and Culture, the Museums Association of Namibia, the National Museum of Namibia, and the University of Namibia. 

It will answer questions on the kind of cultural heritage produced in Namibia that can be found in German, Austrian, and Swiss museums and how they got there.

The project further aims to make items of Namibian cultural heritage visible, knowable, identifiable, traceable, researchable, referenceable, and returnable.

The publication can be downloaded for free from the publication platform of the Max Weber Stiftung.

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DW

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Author
Selima Henock