Since december 2023 a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Germany, Ghana, the Netherlands and Togo as well as priests from a Vodun shrine (in Accra/Ghana) will trace the origins of a collection of Ewe artefacts. This work will be presented on 23 April 2024 at 7 p.m. in Bremen Übersee-Museum.

 Between 1892 and 1914, Carl Spiess, a missionary from the North German Missionary Society (Bremen Mission), collected around 500 artefacts, at least half of which were sensitive and sacred, in the then German colony of Togo and the then British colony of the Gold Coast and handed them over to the museum. The aim of the research is to examine the role and place of these culturally sensitive, sacred material forms in the pre-colonial world of the Ewe in their context, as well as to assess the circumstances of the collection in the context of colonisation and evangelisation, which led to it being taken to Bremen. The question of what the collection means for people in Togo and Ghana will also be asked. At this event, those involved in the project will discuss different perspectives on the collection and how to deal with it in the future.

Tuesday, 23 April 2024 at 7 p.m. at the Übersee-Museum, Bahnhofsplatz 13, 28195 Bremen. Admission: 5 euros, reduced: 4 euros.

 The event will be held in English.