European Conference on African Studies 2025

Professor Suwon Kim, the Principal Investigator of the K-AIM Project, participated in the European Conference on African Studies 2025, held in the Czech Republic on 25 June 2025. The conference is one of the largest international academic conferences in the field of African studies, bringing together scholars from various disciplines to discuss contemporary African issues from interdisciplinary perspectives.

At the conference, Professor Kim presented a paper titled “Asian middle power’s AI to decolonise a museum in the DRC.” The presentation was part of the panel “AI in Eastern Africa: Encounters, Innovations, Resistances.”

The presentation examined a museum in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was constructed as a development assistance project by Korea. While the museum was built with modern digital infrastructure, it remains largely empty due to the slow progress in the restitution of colonial looted artifacts from European institutions. The presentation argued that existing debates on restitution often rely on the same colonial logic of power and possession—where powerful actors control ownership and decision-making—thus repeating the cycle of incomplete decolonisation.

Professor Kim proposed an alternative perspective by exploring how artificial intelligence could contribute to the decolonisation of museums. By changing the way knowledge, archives, and cultural objects are created, reproduced, and accessed, AI could offer new ways to “fill” museums beyond physical restitution, thereby contributing to a more meaningful and transformative approach to decolonisation.

Through this presentation, the study highlighted the role of Asian middle powers, such as Korea, in rethinking development cooperation, digital heritage, and decolonisation in Africa.