Following on from the first phase of the project “Afterlives of Empire – Encounters of Art and Academia” which took place in 2023 and 2024, the group explored colonial legacies in academic collections in Oxford. The aim is to continue to work on the sketches and photos which were taken during the visit and develop art works which will be shown at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin from 5-16 October 2026. The group will invite artists from Oxford to join them again, like last time, and will also conduct a panel debate and (school) workshops during the exhibition, which will be set up at the Lichthof Ost at HU. It will be entitled “Uncomfortable Truths – Art, Colonial Legacies, and Academic Collections”.

In addition to working in Oxford’s museums, the group also went on a de-colonial tour of the Ashmolean Museum, and saw an exhibition by Zimbabwean artists who had been asked to produce sculptures in response to the Rhodes-Must-Fall Movement and the statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes, held by Oriel College. Artist Karin Stumpf also conducted a 2-part school workshop where she gave a talk on colonial history, and then instructed college students from the Cranford Community College in making linocut prints with a focus on their own heritage.

Using art to explore uncomfortable histories and legacies, while at the same time basing the creative work on archival research, has proven to be an extremely productive interdisciplinary approach to shared British and German colonial histories, with Oxford and Berlin at the heart of them.