(De)Colonial Deal at the Musée National Des Arts, Rites, et Traditions: The Franco-Gabonese Heritage in Transit

Finders keepers, losers weepers. Drawing on literature in art history and International Relations, the article explores the dual story of Korea as the Northern South manifested in the Congolese national museum. Although restituting stolen colonial artefacts has garnered more international attention than ever before, actions are not following the talks. The keepers in the North cite a lack of capacity in the South while offering little help to build the facilities. The national museum in the Democratic Republic of the Congo rebuts such Northern claims. The museum was a foreign aid project built by Korea, a member of the Development Assistance Committee at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the club of traditional Northern donors. Korea is taking a unique place in the club as the only former colony to have suffered colonial theft. The article argues that the museum is an extended diplomatic strategy of a conformist Southern donor to regain its own looted art, yet the symbolic building duplicates the incomplete decolonisation of Korea, a weeper in the keepers’ club.

Suweon Kim & Jeremie Eyssette

International Journal of Cultural Policy