24.08.2023
Zentralarchiv
On 22 and 23 February 2024, the collaborative project Traces of the ‘Boxer Rebellion’ in German Museum Collections – A Collective Approach, supported by the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste, is holding a conference at Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich: Boxerloot! Museum collections, the 'boxer war', and practices of plunder.
This conference aims to open an international dialogue on “boxer loot” in museum collections with a focus on historical looting and trading practices. The conference will be conducted in English.
Call for Papers: detailed Call for Papers (PDF, 255 KB). Submissions close 30 September 2023.
We are looking forward to discussing methods, results and challenges of provenance research on objects suspected to have been looted in China in the context of the “boxer war”. As we understand provenance research as going beyond research on individual objects, we especially welcome contributions illuminating the broader context of looting in China in 1900 and 1901 and the continued circulation of these looted objects in the following decades. We are also looking forward to discussing questions of museum practice such as identifying or exhibiting potential “boxer loot”.
The conference is organised by the research project Traces of the ‘Boxer Rebellion’ in German Museum Collections – A Collective Approach, which is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and conducted in collaboration with the Palace Museum in Beijing. The project is headed by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin’s Zentralarchiv and is being carried out in collaboration with the following seven museums: Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich, which is hosting the conference, Museum für Asiatische Kunst and Ethnologisches Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Museum am Rothenbaum: Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK) and Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg (MK&G), GRASSI Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Leipzig, and Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. The discussions at the conference will also contribute to guidelines being prepared by the project team on how to deal with objects in museum collections suspected of being ”boxer loot”.
The discussions at the conference will also contribute to guidelines being prepared by the project team on how to deal with objects from this context.
If you have any questions or need more information, please contact Dr. Christine Howald and Kerstin Pannhorst: boxerprojekt[at]smb.spk-berlin.de.