Digital Repatriation

Mulenga Kapwepwe, laminitis of the Women’s History Museum of Zambia posed a question successful 2022 to a tiny radical of younger tech enthusiasts successful Zambia: Can thing called “blockchain technology” connection immoderate caller usefulness for the preservation of history? She had started a caller inaugural aimed astatine digital humanities, and engaging with young radical excited by exertion who mightiness privation to use their talents to the satellite of arts, culture, and history. The radical of developers, designers, and artists she was moving with shared their enthusiasm for “web3”, and unneurotic they discussed immoderate of the properties and features of blockchains. So she began to see however they mightiness use it to a genuinely challenging occupation for African Heritage: artifact repatriation.

Historically, galore regions astir the satellite person seen their worldly taste practice housed successful European and American museums, raising analyzable questions astir ownership, history, and identity. In the African context, this contented is peculiarly pronounced: an estimated 90% of Africa's worldly taste heritage is present located successful the West, according to the 2018 Sarr and Savoy study The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics¹. While discussions astir carnal repatriation person persisted for years, geopolitical and logistical complexities often marque tangible steps toward solution difficult.

The radical had an idea: if the carnal repatriation of artifacts is excessively bound up successful geopolitical, taste and logistical challenges, possibly it would beryllium imaginable to make a digital cast of the artifacts arsenic a viable alternative. By linking a integer artifact to its carnal original, this method mightiness seizure and evoke a akin transportation to heritage, creativity, history, and the invaluable cognition and lessons of the past that depository patrons acquisition successful person, portion besides offering a caller position connected the carnal artifacts—forming innovative ways to link with taste heritage. With the close supporting technology, African artifacts presently locked distant successful European and American museums could go accessible to Africans whose ancestors took portion successful creating them.

Virtual and augmented world exertion has precocious capable to alteration high-fidelity scans of carnal objects, allowing them to beryllium displayed connected screens, projectors, oregon VR goggles successful a depository exhibition. However, the scanned objects inactive request that indispensable spot of uniqueness successful bid to person a meaningful consciousness of provenance connected to the existent thing. If artifacts housed successful distant museums could beryllium scanned, minted, and exhibited arsenic unique, provenance-verified integer items, researchers, curators, and depository patrons could prosecute with the artifacts successful caller ways. Moreover, societal coordination astir these integer artifacts could alteration meaningful interactions, allowing communities and experts to collectively manage, share, and probe taste practice successful caller ways.

Imagine summons gross from an accumulation connected confederate African masks successful Brussels (or Paris, oregon London) straight benefiting communities successful Lusaka (or Harare, oregon Pretoria)—communities with real, tangible connections to the artifacts. For galore assemblage members who whitethorn ne'er person the accidental to spot the objects successful person, this integer entree could let them to lend idiosyncratic memories oregon unsocial taste discourse that researchers and anthropologists whitethorn person ne'er known. Such contributions could assistance "recontextualize" these artifacts, restoring meaning and relevance to items that person often been displayed without the voices and perspectives of those astir intimately connected to them.

Through the sparks of curiosity that began with this question, the squad laid the archetypal foundational blocks of a caller attack to taste preservation: 1 that connects the practice of the past with the exertion of the present, bringing it to those who clasp it astir dear.

A History Machine

Venkatesh Rao, successful a speech titled “bloodcoin”, described blockchains arsenic “a past technology”. They supply a permanent, accessible mean to inscribe past connected a ledger that does not slice oregon distort implicit time. This makes blockchains an ideal tool oregon technology for museums and anthropologists. Blockchains besides hap to beryllium an businesslike mode to enact “money” and different systems that relation arsenic mediums of exchange, unit(s) of account, and store(s) of value. These properties mightiness let blockchains to go a mean susceptible of “injecting history” into records of worth and ownership to sphere and admit narratives of humanities debts and reparations.

To research this potential, Mulenga Kapwepwe, on with Thomas Gondwe, Nhyira Amofa-Sekyi, and Mario Jere, co-founded SummitShare. Together, they acceptable retired to make innovative, integer methods to code the analyzable realities of history. SummitShare’s attack emphasizes interactive, participatory, and acquisition experiences—bridging the past with a digitally fluent assemblage and providing meaningful connections to taste practice done modern technology.

In the aforesaid mode that the net radically transformed however accusation spreads, blockchains mightiness alteration however past is preserved, offering a signifier of temporal permanence. By creating integer representations of artifacts and inscribing their provenance — their travel done societies and clip — SummitShare democratizes entree to taste heritage. Many artifacts successful European museums contiguous deficiency implicit provenance, but surviving communities whitethorn clasp invaluable discourse (songs, stories, memories) that could deepen knowing and reconstruct meaning. Digital casts of artifacts guarantee this discourse is preserved portion besides enabling practice communities to stock successful the benefits these objects generate.

Proof of Concept: Origins with the WHMZ

Through a collaboration facilitated by the Women’s History Museum of Zambia, the SummitShare squad engaged with the Swedish Ethnographic Museum to entree their catalog and integer repository of artifacts. This concern provided SummitShare with invaluable resources, including entree to integer records containing provenance accusation and archetypal 3D casts of artifacts held successful the Swedish museum’s collection. Leveraging these resources, the squad began designing and modeling a 3D virtual grounds featuring artifacts with affluent humanities contexts from Zambia and confederate Africa. Beyond the integer modeling, the task besides projected tokenizing these artifacts to encode and sphere their provenance, marking a important measurement toward the instauration of a decentralized integer repository.

Development and Growth Under Ethereum’s Next Billion Fellowship Program

In 2023, Mulenga (as pb of the SummitShare team) joined the Ethereum Foundation’s Next Billion Fellowship Program, allowing them to refine the project. The task gained invaluable open-source contributions for astute declaration and archetypal subgraph plan from a pseudonymous contributor, and from Hanan Haj Ahmed, a Palestinian designer, who contributed aboriginal enactment amidst important challenges successful Gaza. Daniel Tembo, a skilled 3D creator with a inheritance successful crippled design, serves arsenic the designer of SummitShare’s virtual realm, and crafted virtual accumulation environments to bring artifacts to beingness successful immersive integer format.

The Leading Ladies Exhibit: A Model for Digital and Physical Collaboration

Throughout 2024, the SummitShare squad has prepared for its inaugural exhibit, furthering probe connected section repatriation efforts and forming cardinal partnerships, including with the Octant Accelerator to standard the platform. This exhibit, titled Leading Ladies, focuses connected the lives and artifacts of six Zambian women—trailblazers from assorted societal roles, specified arsenic generals, governmental activists, and tribal leaders. These artifacts supply unsocial humanities insights and inspiration for modern society.

With SummitShare, museums and galleries tin make exhibitions with some carnal and integer elements, each connected done astute contracts. This allows for unsocial synergies, specified arsenic summons income for European exhibitions supporting taste programs successful Africa, combining integer artifacts with tangible benefits for practice communities.

An grounds connected SummitShare is not conscionable a acceptable of images and models of creation pieces oregon objects – they are linked to a acceptable of astute contracts that supply a unsocial tag to the entity and let it to beryllium represented connected the net of value. With the SummitShare astute contracts, we get the provenance and uniqueness needed for that meaningful transportation to a integer item.

Moreover, the level besides uses the aforesaid acceptable of contracts to negociate summons income arsenic good arsenic interactive features of the grounds that subordinate to the digitized objects. Curation fees, proceeds, benefits, and the narration betwixt them are each structured to instrumentality worth to each custodians of practice and taste value, historically and geographically.

The Leading Ladies grounds holds a peculiar relation with Zambia’s Gwembe Valley community, highlighting the taste origins of the artifacts. The extremity is to guarantee that the Gwembe Valley assemblage straight benefits from the exhibit’s proceeds and engagement.

Before launching this exhibit, the SummitShare squad met with Gwembe Valley leaders to recognize their preservation methods, governance, and information-sharing practices, which informed however the level integrates accepted governance into decision-making processes.

The Gwembe Valley’s enactment extends to 150 communities wrong their jurisdiction, offering an unthinkable accidental for SummitShare to scope a broad, interconnected audience.

Forward-looking History

SummitShare isn’t conscionable astir African heritage, it’s astir utilizing quality coordination to lick the planetary contented of taste disconnection. By placing past and civilization onchain, we make an immutable grounds and a span betwixt past and present, preserving legacies portion empowering practice communities.

At its core, SummitShare focuses connected provenance (information) and people. These guiding principles thrust its ngo to span gaps successful access, knowledge, and representation. This travel is 1 of research, experimentation, and the plan of systems that alteration democratized entree to taste and economical components that person agelong been retired of reach.

The Leading Ladies Exhibit is present disposable for aboriginal entree to supporters. If you’d similar to prosecute with the SummitShare inaugural and lend to the Gwembe Valley community, you tin larn much astir the virtual grounds and unafraid your entree up of the authoritative opening connected December 13th, 2024, on the SummitShare website.

If you enactment successful the museum, university, oregon taste practice abstraction and would similar to cognize much astir SummitShare, oregon would similar to collaborate connected an exhibition, delight interaction [email protected] oregon scope retired to [email protected].

Together, let’s redefine taste practice for a connected, decentralized world—one that values shared stories and inclusive innovation.

If you're a leader, creator, oregon builder moving connected human-centric challenges, we are looking for your story! You tin present apply for Cohorts 5 & 6 of the Next Billion Fellowship. Applications for Cohort 5 volition beryllium considered until 12 January 2025