The question of how ethnographic museums should deal with their colonial pasts has been discussed even among the general public in recent years. Guidelines and recommendations have been developed that take into account the following aspects: who needs to, should, or can restitute artefacts? To whom should material culture be returned?

The exhibition shows how these guidelines relate to twelve specific objects. This opens up a discursive space for visitors that reveals diverse and surprising facets to the question of the “colonial object” and its future. Simple answers are not to be expected, but all the more impulses for reflection and debate.