 While we prepare the technical issues, let me introduce the different participants of this panel. First of all, we have Sarah Martin. She's got a master's degree in social anthropology, and she's preparing her PhD at this university. Her PhD thesis deals with the color and origin heritage. She's an integral part of the Travicans group. She published part of her master's thesis on ethnography, and she presented her work in different forums. We also have Jusef. He's a writer from Colonial, a mediator, and the director of a group of young people in the center of Barcelona. Jusef writes articles in different alternative magazines and journals. And we have titles like, when the mountains walk, and no one will save the rest. And we have Montserrat Anguiano. She's an artist and an Afro-Catalan activist. She did this part of her work to make visible black women and Afro-descendant women. Montserrat has presented her art in different places in Catalonia, Madrid, Valencia, all over the country, also internationally, like in New York, and Ecuador, Guinea. And finally, we have Luis Ramoneda, the head of collections and curator of this museum. He's participated in switch projects showing a world of inclusion, and creativity, and heritage. He's worked in ethnography, in the museums of cultures in the world, and in the new citizenship. He also is working in the museum to determine the different collections. And with respect to the international origins of collections, he's working with projects like Digital Benin, as we were told before, and groups like IATSIS, Australian Institute of Regional Anders Street. So now I'll give the floor to Sarah, so that she can tell us about the experience of the workshops of the previous dialogue panels. And then some questions will open up, dialogue amongst the different members of the panel. And then the public will be able to answer questions. I think her microphone is not working. I think that Luis and Montserrat will help me moderate this session. I will try to cut the long story short. But I won't be able to, so I will extend the long story long. I would like to start this presentation with intercultural dialogue panels. Considering the research group as Alberto said before, as you can see and as you know, I don't think the slide, there was no show, there was a very nice slide. We see that the research team is sharing a criteria that is not inverted. And it includes, from the very beginning, by a group of researchers, both men and women, who are not racialized without any connection with the context of origin, different collections that are part of our intervention through trafficants. They are in the diaspora. And these are the basis on which we have the origin of the intercultural dialogue panels, PDIs, as we call them. And obviously, we have different levels of discrimination and structural racism in the universe that there are epistemological limitations. In other words, we cannot do an exhaustive research of these collections with all the branches that this type of researcher includes, because we don't have the knowledge at all. We may know the methods of purchasing. The purchasing methods, we can trace how they were bought. But then there is an emotional dimension, deeply rooted knowledge of these communities, in the diaspora, that we don't really have. The project stems from the perspective of human rights, and it has a lot to do with one of the fundamental complaints and the cultural restitution projects. People have the right to enjoy their own culture, as Alberto said before, which, as we know, in Catalonia to the short ago, we had not asked these diasporic communities or people that can be culturally connected by this heritage that is in New Museums. What they think, on the one hand, how these elements are presented, and on the other, what do they think about these projects being in different areas away from the source of origin. Making this heritage available to the communities is an interest. PDIs were considered photo-tendering, trying to talk about different groups of images, and in this case, of the photo funds associated to the museums of cultures. And in fact, the initiative comes from some previous experiences that were developed in the last years in the observatory of daily life. Andres and Pablo, in this case, are the key people there. One of the lengths of the traffic, of the traffic ends. Here in Catalonia, there's a biodegradable of the museum of culture, and there's a biodegradable of the museum of culture, and there's a biodegradable of the museum of collection. Taking advantage of some activities that have been organized before and coordinated from the observatory in the framework of an initiative carried out by in the framework of Barcelona-Crea. Three more were organized in Equatorial Guinea, one in Malabo, two of them, and then two more. David, I don't see the other one, the museum Victor Válagae of Pilar Nova. Up until today, we have carried out, I think, up to 10 intercultural roundtables, and one of them will take place in Banyolas with the community from Gambia, and we are considering about the possibility of organizing some others. The images that we use were coming from the photographic collection and also the factual artifact collection of the museums, and in the case of the ethnological museum, these were photographs coming from Guinea, different elements of the museum, including also archives and objects, maps with different itineraries, and the different expeditions, et cetera, and in the case of some photographs, we were able to trace and co-responsabilize some of the histories and things that happen in some of the exhibitions in a way with the support and the details given, because besides the participants, we decided to have an observer, which will be part also of the team of research and also a moderator that is not part of the team of research, and a little bit in order to maintain these distances from a methodological perspective. And these long tables that were organized and were recorded, as we will see, were made by a range of four, five, seven participants with some exceptions, and the dynamics were that we were inviting them to choose one of the images deployed without any previous criteria on the table, and we were suggesting them and asking them we're inviting them to explain what was the things that came to their mind, a reflection about what was being represented in the photography or photographs related to the images. And from here, we have different debates from approximation to the pieces and the situations that were pictured in a more nostalgic way, memory and the family and cultural context. We also exchange more precise information about the meanings and social processes of the project's origin and current situation, and also critical reflections about colonial practices of these expeditions that continue to exist today. And also in the ways we preserve and we expose these catalogs in the Ethnological Museum and also in other museums. Of course, the different subjects that we dealt with were different depending on the participants and the debates, the way these collections were made and also related to colonial and neocolonial processes in Spain and other countries. Since we are talking about the works realized at the Moec, I will think about the Guinea and Moroccan collections. In the case of the collection from Morocco, we selected some of the objects, especially daily objects, which were significant jewelry, lucky gems, et cetera, that were obtained from purchasing policy of the different collaborators along the different expeditions organized in Morocco. But probably the stronger one in these round tables were colonial photographers that were part of the collection, where we portrayed the local population in markets and also in different places of the protectorate, such as the indigenous guard of prostitutes, which were used in order to overcome the refusal of this population to this picture. Many of these images, in fact, are associated to one of the main objectives of the mission of the museum, anthropological cultures, and one objective was art and science, hand in hand. And these sculptures, which were made by Serna, some of them was one of the main collaborators of the museum, Barcelona, together with the Spaniard in many of the ethnological expeditions of the museum. These photographs, in fact, reflect the use made by the colonial administration to be far from the Metropolis, but also come into the museum and not only reflect these devices of colonial space, but also how photography is a testimony of this violence issued by the director of the museum and these collaborators under the umbrella of the power structure of the protectorate. One clear example is in some of the pictures when they dialogue among themselves and they allow us to trace the different procedures to obtain different models for the creation of these anthropological sculptures. And in this way, I decided not to show the images because as I will explain, the use of colonial photography well, has given race to an open debate about the victimization that we will be incurring with in the team of research, circulating and disseminating these images. But let me tell you that in these tables, we find some interesting elements that I will not show, but I will explain. And some of the things that were generated in these TDIs. One of the photographs, a series of four photographs, the first photograph where we can see a portrait of four girls being portrayed by Augusta Pañalla and Oriol Serra were just by the description of the image, we know that the rehabilitation school was created as Center for Social Discipline during the expedition of 1954. A second photography with the portrait of a girl that appeared already in the previous photography dating from the same year in front of the TETUAN Archaeological Museum. And, thirdly, a fourth picture with the person who took the image and of the same girl and which is preserved nowadays in the same museum. So I would like to tell you also, I'd like to show you some of the videos. It looks like a uniform. Yes, I would say it's... It looks like a uniform, yet it's a school uniform because I have a similar picture of my mother wearing the same uniform, although I don't want to generalize. What is the intention of this photo? Well, I would say that the four girls... I want to know, more than anything, the year and in which place the photo is taken. And I think it's in the school uniform of the school and of the four girls who were together. But I don't know, I'd like to know. Let's see. They look like sisters. Well, I guess they are sisters. And before I said, maybe they are in a roof, in a tall roof, but no. It could be the school yard. The peonies are also paying attention, but it looks like a uniform. Yes, I would say it's a school uniform, because in fact, I have a similar picture of my mother. I mean, with the same uniform, I think... I don't want to generalize, but at least in the town of my mother I would say it's the roof. Well, about the roof. Yes, it's also a school uniform, because in our group we all have a school uniform of girls, all of them look like girls. So it seems... it's not very interesting, but in fact, making hypotheses, because they didn't have the information yet about where the picture had been taken. But then, when you ask, and when all the information is given, they realize how the debate changes. I'm very concerned about my right hand, because it could also be my mother at the time. They call me attention, but I don't know if you know her. I can't forget it. What kind of hesitation? I'm happy with where she is, or perhaps because she made a photo, but the left one didn't... or it didn't have a good day, I don't know. Well, knowing that she's in the center, well, I don't know. It's like one is shy, the other is smiling at the photo, the other doesn't know what to do, and the other is shy. Different states are the same. What city? What city? Good. How did you know? I don't know. It's not a mountain. Well, call me fragments. It's a shame. There are more fragments. It's a shame because I cannot show all of them. I don't know how am I doing with time. If you have time, I can show you more fragments. On the other hand, we also have the TDI about the Guinean collection, and these added some complexities as far as the selection of images due to the composition of the found, and the Moroccan collection is made by objects coming from very specific expeditions organized by the museum. The Guinean collection is much more diverse as far as the presence of the pieces. In this case, we have an important collection of pieces coming from different exhibitions of the museum, but also structures such as Icumde, which is the center of animal acclimatization in Cumde, which was working as Jordi Sabatepe ethnologies and well-known for being the one who made a snowflake to Barcelona. This center, as Alberto said, was not only in charge of aquarium and bringing animals to the peninsula, but also recovering pieces of ethnological interest that were sent to the museum. Beyond the task of the museum, we also find other collections, which are quite polemic, such as the collection of postals of Núñel de Prado, governor of the Spanish Guine, between 1925 and 1931, but also the Claritian museums of the Catholic mission of Sant'Isabel, among others. In this case, photographs reflected very well, for example, the impossibility of plundering natural resources and resources in the compulsive task of the museum, something that the participants are in charge of placing the table in these debates. We also encounter different images, uncomfortable ones that were placed on the tables, such as the photography of Juan Maria Monet at the government of Guinea, between 1943 and 1949, sitting at the chair and being transported by three or four people from Guinea. I think that in reality, just to make a summary, we can highlight three main axes in the debates that took place among the participants. One of them could be the meaning and the use of these objects, this emotional aspect of the pieces and how they had been transformed and the continuity that was given to them. A second axis that is related to the criticism to the same mosaic institution about the accumulation logics of the museum frame in logic of colonial planterine, material planterine, but also knowledge associated to the practices linked to these objects and resources, about the colonial practices about warehousing and contextualizing and criticizing these collections without knowing how these collections arrive here and without explaining how they were acquired. In this second axis, we can also place the debate about the possibilities of repairing that was conceived from the different TVIs and also in many different ways. And a third axis points to the continuity of colonial violences that we find materializing the museums and the way they project one or other image framing a dialogue about these collections but we also have to say the university institution and the way they carry out research. I would like to show you a couple of videos related to the TVIs of this Ginean collection My father is a carpenter and my father used to tell me that if that stick is tobacco that if it is wood or wood that it is a pine and I was like ok but he told me that there are not many left of tobacco and I said well I would also like to tell the kids from Barcelona, from Catalonia, that part of the Barcelona airport has been built with Ginean wood. The people who cut that wood are black. And then they say they are wood that come out of the soil and they don't come back to plant more of these. At some point we lose part of our nature, the trees that they are cutting and carrying. How many tobacco trees do I have to tell more about the forest? But they are here, reinforcing a port and part of the story is that we are removed and those from here don't realize it. I think it's interesting to highlight this relationship of plundering natural resources but also plundering of knowledge from the local population. I feel it's like an announcement of those we see to children Africans who are asked for money. Why? Because I know the counterpart of this image and the counterpart is the Ginean nationalism mentioning the Spanish Frankism and the Spanish colonialism having to go when Francisco Macías arrived, he is elected president by the people of Guinean-Cuartria and the reasons why in Spain all the relative Guinean-Cuartria is silenced. The reasons why Spain had to go against its will of Guinean-Cuartria because when you know the process of decolonization of Guinean-Cuartria you see that Spain is extending that autonomy that province, that autonomy of the people of Guinean-Cuartria and the Guinean nationalism plays its role I think it's clear that these round tables have become important spaces of debate in order to listen to the objects from the perspective of people and these diaspora communities because it's important that the museum stops being the one making those objects talk but people should be the ones related to these cultural heritage and cultural materiality that can speak so this is an exercise of recontextualizing and re-signifying from the bottom although this initiative has come from the institutions I would like, I don't know how am I doing with time I have time we expressed two fundamental debates related to these first TDIs as Alberto has already mentioned and they are related to a process of internal self-criticism and in fact we thought about central aspects to the way we approach research and also the results that come from research and this is why we organized a couple of internal seminars one of them about the use of images in which we debated how uncomfortable these colonial images of archives could be that were being circulated by this TDI and which were expressed explicitly by some of the participants of the TDI and also the selection of these images started a debate among the different members of the research team which were the images that could be shown how are we reproducing epistemological violences when we show images of people who were portrayed without their consent and how can we show images without reproducing these violences these colonial images can become tools for the creation of alternative alternatives about the recreation of the colonial past in the museum a series of questions that bring images as testimonies and how they can become tools of participation and creation of different narrations of the colonial history and the other seminar about the participation of diasporas and this is what Alberto has already explained where we spoke about which should be the level of intervention of those communities although we thought that these round tables should choose a consulting group in charge of the debate which will be the object of this provenance research studies and from this process of self-criticism and these feelings coming from this round table which is related to a way of instrumentalizing the different communities we understood the different mechanisms of participation of the communities in the project could not be limited to the consultive role but it was rather unnecessary if the intention of the project was to take steps in order to decolonize the way with research that this participation could be a structure and binding without forgetting the issues and limitations which were part of the starting point and this is why we created these groups of observations taking into account the functions explained by Alberto finally to conclude I would like to highlight the importance of bringing this debate to the countries where these pieces come from this is not something we had foreseen it was quite improvised and we were able to organize several round tables in Equatorial Guinea within the framework of a trip presenting the project to guinean institutions this exchange became pivotal in order to establish first to use the knowledge of the legacy that we have in Catalan Museums which is quite valuable for those people not only from a heritage and artistic point of view but also from a ritual cultural point of view and secondly to make them participate in the dialogue about the formulas and criteria of the repairing processes and restitution processes of this patrimony for example we speak about very interesting debates about the functionality of the different pieces nowadays other ways of talking about restitution and repair about the uses that we can do about these pieces when they came home and we also question and ask many questions about the content of these museums and there is a lot of interest in getting to know the results of the research and also all the pieces that are included in the museum I leave it here and maybe we can continue the debate later on thank you thank you very much for a very interesting presentation I think it's very clear all the work that has been done and Alberto was already mentioning that we have three different groups on the one hand the museum institutions that are represented here that have expressed their will of action related to these subjects but we also have representatives of these diaspora communities and we have also mentioned Alberto and Sarai have spoken about this process that has taken place as part of the project in order to understand the relationship among these communities I would like to ask Giuseppe and Montserrat when they receive this invitation to participate in these roundtables of debates taking into account that this has happened before many of these changes that has been introduced the creation of the GOAS etc how did you welcome all these did you think that maybe it was another way of instrumentalizing all these which was experienced can you please now that we have the opportunity to listen to voices from the other side I think it's also interesting to know what you think and the way you experience all these hello can you hear me good afternoon my name is Montserrat Anguiano I'm an artist and I participated in very interesting roundtables and how did I receive this information well sincerely I was very grateful I say well it's time that this happened we're on the right path because the most important thing in order to be aware of this we're trying about colonizing art but also decolonizing our mindsets and this importance given to people who are implicitly part of the community in my case I come from Equatorial Guinea I was born here but I think it's the right moment if we want to take steps forward this is the moment for us to be the same community the one that will explain our own history we should be asked of course I don't ask about the good will of people doing this but if you want to have like a reference and you want to invite people from this diaspora for me this is a very positive step forward and I think that this is the right way to go I'd like to follow this line or train of thought I was invited by people to my trust having said this it's true that we always have kind of a suspicion as Alberto said that it's not maybe an issue having to do like flowerpot experiences because so we have these narratives that academia or some foundations or some or where money comes from well we'll have where it's narratives a way of expressing the projects that will always be part of a rational that will not be willing to meet some people but people participating are able to confront these powers we talk about restoring the rights and the net worth and the heritage your restitution is the word but no one ever told me how much we want to stretch these words will be the final goal and how these words have some importance so in these panels you were talking about people were willing to push hard and we're able to push hard while confronting others not leaving this as a tokenization experience rather it should be a political debate we have many starting points that are interesting as we could hear now but there are some symbolic elements intercultural dialogue panel I don't see interculturality anywhere we have people coming from the same geographical area to talk about some of the works of art that came from the same place so I think that with these little details with these elements that we see you will facilitate solving errors and we can be more constructive having a wider scope maybe we can start with Louis how do you think of these activities this is a tool I know but how can they contribute positively to a process of restoration is it one more tool that is part of an ensemble of activities that ultimately have to lead us to the final goals that will leave things clear but do you think that organizing 2, 3, 10 panels is enough to achieve this goal do we have enough representative people representing these different visions how do you think to a good end would like to express an opinion as I said before starting from scratch 3, 10 panels doesn't really matter this is the beginning something that we are building all together how do we start it like this it would be different but I think we are doing a pretty good job and as I said before it should be up to us we should be asked what I think is following this train of thought listening to the opinion of different people from the diaspora people who are after descendant I think this is a good starting point and from well from here on we shouldn't forget this we shouldn't forget this if we really want to repair things we should not forget about ourselves we should always know what to do I fully agree with what we just said I believe that we have to learn from our previous experiences work experiences we are right at the beginning the museum has been has had a certain trajectory dealing with these topics but not constantly not completely I'm thinking about the Department of Education the department that includes many of these topics but there is a lot of work to do a long long way to go and evidently as I said before considering that we are repairing restoring things it's so difficult to coloniality for example this is something that cannot be solved so easily we cannot say that we have found a solution we can even say this from our institutions so I think that evaluation of it all and I understand there should be a process of evaluation different dynamics evaluating seeing how the museum institutions are digesting learning from the lessons should lead us to a more positive scenario I think this is the beginning I would even dare to say that the museum has had fortune the last few years to see that there are some dynamics that are leading towards that goal if you let me to continue for the last few years the museum began working in international projects that debated this topic this was the first dialogue we had with the concept of the aspera colonialization etc so we coincided with other European groups that knew more about this than us they had had previous debates and here we have to say that Alberto said it very clearly all this is like the big wave in the moment of colonization coming from the 50s and the 60s we are reaching a point of non-return that leads us to an area of heavy work local groups do an interesting an interesting work generating a similar experience called dialogue with Africa and it was not clearly focused on colonization but it was focused with a concept that was debated connected to this authority connecting museums with authority many movements that criticize institutions and colonialism that have taken place and this was the criticism to authority and the recognition of the aspera were practically the two main axes of raking care and this was the first piece of information in this debate and in fact we had to consider that the museum does not have the authority or shouldn't have the only authority that's for sure and the authority should be shared with this is not an easy thing to do and we have not solved this with these dialogues not even with three or five more dialogues we'll need more work to be done but if there's a way to do things it's going to progress to advance in that respect I think that we are on the right track understand that that we are at the very beginning of the social movements that in one way or another are leading definitely this is in the up and guard of the movement I don't know if you wanted to add something else no, not really well now that you've talked about this talked about the issue of sharing authority with the communities what do you think because museums are well organized they are an institution but communities as such are not a community, a well organized community it's quite a virtual community so how do you think this dialogue can take place between an organized body with protocols with a community that this is virtual because it's not structured well let me just say one thing about what you just mentioned the organization of this community I think we are starting to become better organized it's something which is very recent but let me mention well 2015 that was the black Barcelona movement this was a way of you know becoming better organized I would like to expand this I was born here in Barcelona I was adopted by a Catalan family I had never met any black people my background was totally white till I went to these meetings and I met people like me people that are after descendants and people from Spain from Catalan since 2015 up until now I've seen other organizations we are getting to meet other organizations people from Senegal people are well people are making this or letting this grow quite remarkably this is becoming more material we shouldn't forget that this makes sense we are becoming better organized I understand what you just said there are some organizations that we have a cultural group called brown and black people after descendants programming cultural events we have a person rationalized with after descendants or after descendants people who are born here this is taking place here it seems like the media are becoming interested in the exotic groups now that we are becoming organized now that we are creating some spaces but why did we do that? because we couldn't find our place and what is being done here is so important because we are giving a voice to people and it's true we have this will of becoming better organized this is just the beginning no one will stop us definitely well I would reformulate this question when we talk about a community what are we talking about I believe that it's difficult to do because I think we have to see how to make these people academia people who are highly empowered and who are generating a content how can we make these people reach other groups of people who just arrived people who are looking for some references obviously here I think that everyone could generate a brainstorm and we could contribute with their own ideas there's a lot of work to be done but these museums I think that they are missing some racialized staff if I'm wrong please correct me or guidelines to exhibit racialized people that have to deal with the origin of these works or these works of art I think that we have to share this with pedagogical material if I've seen just in this and I think that this is a pretty good material maybe I'll feel surprised to see other things like margaret wood or white people with blue eyes I'm missing lately many or Amanda the voice of women or men that are also related to the content of these publications and that are not Indo-European so I think that we have some starting points some good starting points we have the will we have the possibility of having a wider group of people definitely that should be so Salai maybe you could tell me more about it we had the panels here and then we had them in Guinea what are the differences or similarities between the panels organized here and the panels organized there because the question that I wanted to ask is the following considering that we have these differences between people in panels organized in the diaspora and people and panels organized in the countries of origin how can we organize all this information because the positioning with respect to a possible restitution process can be very different in one place or in the other could you maybe just explain us more about it maybe you could tell us more about this yes but in fact information well the use of this information when thinking about can you hear me to see what is the use of information the differences between the different panels in one place or the other I would leave the answer to to the museums and in fact there were many points in common but there were some substantial differences that were interesting definitely and that won't be able to make a long list trying to show these differences but here I had the feeling and some people in the team saw that well there's more information now I got the feeling that PD&S these groups of the Guinean community in Catalonia had a deeper knowledge of all this issue how to deal with the restitution and compensation and the criticism they were they had a lot more to do with the opening of the debate on how the museum approach should be reshaped in the different possibilities of compensation but I got the feeling that in Guinean both in Bath as well as in Malawu well having a much closer knowledge, a more daily knowledge about the the state of VR, the situation included a debate between whether or not restituting or compensating it was very clear that it's so easy restitution in terms as Alberto said before in bilateral terms from state to state in fact it was very surprising to see all these considerations of some of the participants who said they rightly said that maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea that some pieces came back to Guinean maybe if I'm wrong please correct me but not returning these pieces to the source of origin it's a very complex debate I know but the kind of use that the Guinean state could do with respect to some of the pieces that could also have a ritual functionality I would have a lot to say or they would have a lot to say about the uses and the meaning of objects that are used in there because many of them have a daily use they also talked a lot about they had lots of people who had very updated information on restitution do we have time to show a small video I forgot about this before but I think that the purchase the confiscations there are many things in the concept of exploration which is the idea with which I handle all this information 2 the restitution process is not a process that is decided in the morning it's a long process that implies indeed that it is known that it has a value to be restituted and in what conditions the owner or his current portfolio would be available to return it and what are the conditions and the characteristics that meet the restitution I think the third is to accept that those who have a cultural religious value accept their death and that if they are restituted they will be restituted as objects of history with that historical value I am what I have been managing since I am playing a little on the subject of exploration I don't know if I answered clearly this fragment it falls within this context of what we are just talking about but I think we should talk about this very clearly because it depends depending on how we can lengthen the idea of cultural hegemony that we do things very well and maybe pieces come back well to the origin to the source of origin who knows what will happen I believe that we are missing the voice of some people you mentioned the lack of people with the lack of discipline these dissonant voices that don't have an opinion that has been memorized so speaking a situation on the first person without being authorized voices some people are highly politicized I always thought that in these panels my mother should have been there an illiterate person that had a lot to say many of these pieces, these components she would probably know about the traceability in a certain humanity in the origin we were theorizing within this academic rational therefore this is something that really disturbs me how do we as I said before these the opinions from the top should go down to earth and the pieces down to earth should go up I would like to see the full video because it has a lot they have a lot to say maybe we may fall in in these hegemonic presentations we have to see how these pieces should stay here should we make an absolute colonial traceability that has names and has a name and a last name and a source of origin who are the owners who are the museums that have the owner shape the rightful owners artists that made this that made these pieces are anonymous this is something that I would see as a very positive thing we should probably give a name to these elements well I believe that one of the big problems we have in guinea, equatorial guinea is the lack of culture lack of well there is no motivation we have to know what is the past intellectuals in guinea, in equatorial guinea are being prosecuted Milivina if I get their name right, well it was sent to prison and thanks to the pressure well as I said before no one will shut our voices that's what I want to believe and people fought for her and she was taken out of jail we should foster this interest of people living inside intellectuals they have a clear interest but how to let people Malabo and Bata or whatever become aware become interested in in these situations in what we are witnessing right now very interesting what you say one thing I forgot to tell you is that well we have been fortunate to find dynamics that favor a discussion beyond colonialism all institutionally this connects with what some people say how are we going to organize this we have to find partners and alliances for example a line of work is with the academia this work that is being organized the other is internally in the city council there is a department of interculturality that is playing a role is doing things that are helping to support these mechanisms of change this was specified in a project called masks it was like an analysis of interculturality where many critical elements came up in museums supported this we were willing to collaborate with this intercultural group and some of the conclusions that we heard there connected with what it just says this project called masks determined that museums with the level of compromise against egocentrism and colonialism accommodate more to or feel for less comfortable keeping these pieces in their own collection sometimes forcing a new approach sharing the ownership interculturality includes a conceptualized reflection critical discourse dialogue should be a permanent not just an isolated element there should be equity there should be a priority in diversity and all of the these are reflections that the museum our museum is gathering these will reflect that in one way or another with some kind of a more specific set of actions and it's true evidently there's a second element we just keep it here and we don't do anything else that's a second way of our second reading but I understand that beyond all this beyond these considerations we understood that some pieces have to be returned to the country of origin but this doesn't have to be understood as an easy thing we should avoid falling in a danger this would be like saying well we return we have compensated down deal well not really things will always be there things like these this will always be there the existence of these collections the necessary reflection of these collections is like a commitment an open commitment and continue an ongoing commitment evidently this should be approached in a critical way in the construct of constant change let me make just a brief comment as a moderator one is that considering what has just been said we've seen a fragment of a video but the panels were both Malabo and Bata and in both places we heard different opinions well he's a lawyer and he had a more correct structured approach but we also had the privilege of having people both in Malabo and Bata people in the case of Malabo he was a gentleman who had a specific connection with many of the ritual objects and when he knew because there's another topic or another issue to consider people don't have the knowledge like if you were to Barcelona and you asked people about a street maybe that person will not know many of the things about that street or that museum or that church but this guy when he was asked well he gave us a lot of information he was really shocked and in actual words this was an apparition this heritage should not be in Barcelona so on the one hand we evidence that this is one of the jobs that people have which is returning things to the country of origin we also could see some initiatives people who are becoming organized people who are becoming organized to you know progress with these initiatives and there was a very specific initiative of people who do research who study anthropology history or whatever in fact these people through or the first time that they see some of these objects sometimes it's done because researchers not having real access is another problem and research is polarized in Europe and people in this case in Guinea or in Morocco cannot progress in their studies because they do not have access to these heritage we have a social component not only the physical issue of heritage which is physically displaced etc are more difficult because they don't have access to this heritage I don't know if you would like to say anything else otherwise we'll open up the Q&A session very briefly I think that to me the main objective of this project is that this is part of the political agenda because I know that there was going to be some administrations that will invest some efforts in order to create the Department of Interculturality with staff that will do everything possible in order to generate fantastic content but it's not part of the political agenda of anybody so for me the main objective would be the besides the objectives of the project well this will move forward and the debate is generated and society in general can also debate this one of the things that makes me uncomfortable is interculturality I think interculturality does not exist it's a very theoretical beautiful framework where all the cultures can understand among each other I prefer to speak about transculturality because cultures do evolve then if I was born in Morocco but I arrived at the age of a couple of weeks I consider myself more catalan than Moroccan because in the end my identity is the addition of many factors I'm thinking as a hypothesis these works of art when are they going to be catalan or are they ever going to be catalan because people can access a certain identity which is more or less liquid but these works of art or maybe this colonial past cannot be accepted as such as Jeffrey was saying we generate different narratives in order to forget bypass this reality so this is something that should be debated as well how to recognize that Spain was a colonizing country and there were actions of plundering and expeditions I would like to know what an expedition is and from here to generate a debate and to collaborate among the members of the Spanish and catalan cosmography I can start asking a question let me start by asking a question we found the whole explanation very interesting and I wanted to ask a question related to what we've said before which is this cultural gap when we speak about restitution in the sense of the need of restituting and the existence of the need of restitution is the reflection of how art, history and the patrimony of a certain community is in another country because this makes it difficult for the members of this community to access knowledge about their own history and of course these policies have the will to expel this cultural gap but also through the experiences that you had explained the existence of museums in our society does not mean that this cultural gap exists because there are some bias class bias, centralized bias etc so my question is the following there is this museum which has patrimony the Filipino, Guinean, Moroccan communities but what is the previous relationship that you had with this museum knowing these collections and also the different communities and what was the reflection from the museum not only about this reality which is obvious and this is a problem which can be also applied to other reflections the question of the cultural gap meaning for example the accumulation of this patrimony from one country to another but also the reality and the existence of the institution means that here we don't have this gap related to the museum I hope I have explained, I made myself clear I don't know if I understood your question or comment but of course what you say it's true the cultural gap does exist related to the museums I think that the museums this is a problem they have independently of the colonial past problems with the audience the viewers, reaching people etc I don't know if this is what you meant there are also some biases cultural biases and other types of biases if we add these biases well the situation is even worse with a more structural dimension which is what in the end does exist therefore I'm thinking about the limits of the institution from the institution we are thinking about different practices maybe here we have different departments where they've been fighting for all these policies I'm thinking about the Department of Education and Communication etc public programs Department of course all public programs and in a way as they take on the organization of these debates and we take on also the different reflections that we mentioned maybe we will start overcoming this but I don't know which are the formulas that are going to be used I'm not only thinking about the colonial aspects but the structural aspects of the museums patrimony and the lack of knowledge from the communities of the existence of this legacy and also the importance of organizing these workshops in order to disseminate this knowledge and to shorten this gap but maybe the reflection of the same institution does not mean the existence of this reality or reproduction I work with young people and institutions such a museum are spaces that are not attractive to them they don't feel attracted by these museums let me insist that there is a question of narration as well what they will encounter there they have to be able to understand the content even if it's in an abstract way but in a way they should be able to understand and grab there is a lack of references and there is a lack of racialized artists of different discourses I don't want to fall into victimism or complaint but I don't think well speaking of the multicultural aspects how beautiful Barcelona is but then you don't see this reflected in the institutions and it's clear that the young person is not going to see that either so the focus should be on these institutions because this is where the wider gap exists to insist and to insist on the young population I also think that we make a mistake because everybody goes to the high school kill the sack everybody wants to go into the high schools to offer different conferences and we are saturating these institutions therefore let me insist I don't think that the political agenda are worried about whether these museums are empty or not they are worried that on the day of the opening they can go and take the picture so from a cultural perspective there is a huge bias because nobody is interested in this something I would like to mention and something which is important for our debate when we speak about tribal work of art we consider artisan work and not the piece of art and to me this is already pointing to the differences that we establish when we know that many of the works of art of painters such as Modigliani, Picasso Miro are under the direct influence or appropriated from these African art tribal art and one thing is the work of artisans and the other one is contemporary work of art one of the business one of the business that moves more money is tribal art and these are works of art which are totally and completely anonymous and people who are trading with these works of art are making profit you cannot imagine how much profit they can make so please be aware of the existence of them and be realistic these are also works of art and this is the origin of many of the works of art any other questions? comments? apologies because I wanted to be brief I don't have any questions I think this is a very interesting project and makes me reflect about many things but I would like to thank the members of the round table I really like what you said and I really like to see and to listen to the different experiences to speak people from everywhere but also thank you for your presence, the members of this round table I was very interested about what you said and it made me think and reflect so thank you, I just wanted to say that since nobody has any question thank you, thank you all of you hello it's not a question but rather a comment at the beginning I was explaining the work that we do from the kitchen when we document and do research about the collections that belong to this museum of course with very diverse origins acquisitions etc what happens is that I was listening to you speaking about the community and members of the community there are many museums but our museum now we are speaking about this proximity which is a very important line to us but not only the communities because of the communities living now in Barcelona but our next door neighbor the effort to break this barrier presenting museums and something to belonging to the elites but museums should play a totally different role and I don't care I say that in brackets if they are visiting these rooms and they consider some of the objects art or they consider them from the point of view of functionality I mean that I want people to appropriate these objects and to listen to us and I don't like to use the expression community because communities it seems that we are speaking about close groups and this does not exist in such a clear way but let me say that this is one of the difficulties encountered by museums and this one in particular how can I know the name of next door neighbor whether she's racialized she has eight Catalan last names etc and this is the work that we have to do with our citizens and to be able to say there are no barriers here you should come access our museum work and do things that's all I don't know if you want to give me any answer but it's just a comment I thank you for this reflection about the word community because it makes me very uncomfortable the Magribian community the Moroccan community the Filipino community we wonder whether there is a Moroccan community or not let me tell you that you have a handicap which is called tourism and what happens where you are where you are placed is that most of the people walking by your door are tourists therefore a wish we had racialized neighbors or some people with a Catalan last name here living in these territories there are a few maybe and they are worried not to be evicted but yes if I'm an expert in accessibility to museums but I'm sure that that practices that can favor the existence of more people to me one of them is that instead of mentioning Margaret Atwood or Alba Tokarzo we should mention a writer living in the neighborhood I think it's better if you mention Nobel Prize a local writer living next door but this culture of proximity sometimes makes us forget other things and we want to place importance on things that are not so important I wanted to I take advantage of this opportunity to ask a question from the museum up until now there has been a direct collaboration with people question directly by the collections existing in the museums and this task that you have explained that you are doing of initiating this process of decolonization of the museum and the collections etc up until now has anybody joined or do you have any plans in the future of anybody joining this project to the staff the same way that Alberto has explained in the project this could be different and this is the mission that we had in the GOAS which plays an important and decisive role so this is the question have you ever thought about the possibility of having this type of figure or maybe somebody joining staff maybe and having this diversity which is so much needed of the museum of this is part of your policies well we have not thought about this yet what Alberto has explained and what the member of the GOAS has explained as well so this is something that I found very interesting and I think that as I was saying this process it's a very initial process also the collaboration that we have established with interculturality which is relatively recent and it's quite fresh and new therefore thinking about this type of structural measures which are quite complicated and I'm thinking about questions related to the administration in the sense that it means creating institutions intermediate institutions is not simple so I was thinking about reaching consensus with the institution to which we belong because I was thinking about your comments and this is something that we have not discussed or debated incorporating new staff it's always a problem not incorporating the staff in order to have I don't know collectives or situations or someone who is representative of this diversity but museums are made by a few people and it's a structural problem I think the director has already mentioned this in fact we are here in order to follow policies that had left us with quite an important austerity it's not easy to solve and this is something that we should discuss we have not discussed it yet but it's a complex issue and we cannot approach it only from the museum because it's an institution that depends from other structures no more comments no questions okay we finished this round table thank you very much for your presence round table and thank you for sharing these experiences thank you Sarai for all your explanations and see you tomorrow