Dissonant Legacies: Engaging with Difficult University Heritage

Decolonising University Heritage

Over the last ten years, many universities have started a reflection on their colonial legacy by promoting scientific inquiry into their role in colonial appropriation and exploitation as well as putting forward different decolonizing practices. The items presented on this page encourage reflection on the breadth of this subject, which spans from epistemological considerations of colonial racism and its influence on collections, to the redefinition of Eurocentric scientific nomenclature and to the repatriation of objects acquired within frameworks of informal imperialism.

Greek antiquities from French excavations at Delphi and Delos

Codex Cospi

Portrait of Professor Georg August Wallin

Plant labels at the Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum

Posters after the work of the anthropologist Rudolf Martin