Entangled Histories: Berlin museums join forces to research colonial collections from Togo and Ghana
In collaboration with partners in Togo and Ghana, a new joint project is investigating the colonial contexts in which these collections were acquired and opening up new perspectives on historical collections.
For the first time, Berlin museums are jointly investigating the circumstances surrounding the appropriation of collections from the former German colony of Togo, which at the time included part of Ghana. Project partners in Berlin are the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, the Botanic Garden and the Botanical Museum, together with the Ethnologisches Museum and the Zentralarchiv of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The project will take place in cooperation with partners from the Archives Nationales du Togo and the University of Ghana, and in consultation with local traditional knowledge holders. Botanical, zoological, and cultural-historical collections from this colonial context will be evaluated across institutions and disciplines over a period of two years. The project is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation.
The collaboration between the Berlin museums is historically rooted in a Federal Council resolution of 1889, which designated the three institutions as central collecting points for items sent from the German colonies. The museums benefited enormously from this political favouritism, as colonial officials and military personnel now regularly sent crates of preserved plants, animals and cultural objects to Berlin. Often, the same colonial actors supplied all three museums, linking them through a shared collection history. Although holdings from the colonial era still make up a large portion of the museum collections today, their provenance and significance are often inadequately documented.
This research project “Entangled Histories. Colonial collections from Togo and Ghana in the Berlin Museums” addresses this issue with an exemplary study: it focuses on the first two colonial stations, Bismarckburg and Misahöhe, located in the interior of Togo. The research examines their significance as hubs of colonial violence, economic exploitation and scientific collecting. The project reconstructs this entanglement of science, economy and politics. It also considers the often overlooked contribution of regional knowledge bearers and the experiences of the local population, as well as the relevance of colonial museum collections in Togo and Ghana today.
By bringing together their archives and collections and examining them comparatively in collaboration with partners in Togo and Ghana, the three museums are generating new perspectives on colonial practices of appropriation, classification and exploitation. The collaborative project “Entangled Histories: Colonial Holdings from Togo and Ghana in Berlin’s Museums” will also develop a model for transdisciplinary provenance research, which enables the reconstruction of the shared acquisition history of museum collections that have previously been studied separately, while integrating different knowledge systems. The aim is to systematically incorporate oral traditions, memories and local perspectives from Togo and Ghana into the research, thereby creating space for narratives that were excluded from colonial archives.
A collaborative project of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, the Botanic Garden and the Botanical Museum, Freie Universität Berlin, as well as the Ethnologisches Museum and the Zentralarchiv of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. In cooperation with Prof. Dr. Kodzo Gavua, University of Ghana, and Dr. Messan Tossa, Archives Nationales du Togo.
Funded by the German Lost Art Foundation.
Berlin project team:
Museum für Naturkunde Berlin: Anita Hermannstädter / Dr. Katja Kaiser (Project Lead), Kerstin Pannhorst (Researcher), Maxima Atakora (Student Assistant)
Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum: Dr. Luiza Bengtsson (Project Lead), Marius Kowalak (Researcher)
Ethnologisches Museum and Zentralarchiv of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (SPK): Ilja Labischinski (Project Lead), Dr. Ohiniko Toffa (Project Lead, part-time researcher), Dr. Verena Rodatus (Research Advisor)
Duration: May 2026 until April 2028
Photo: Bernhard Schurian
The project is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation.