Museum of Stolen Artifacts

The Museum of Stolen Artefacts is a community-led museum flipping the script on colonial looting. It centres the voices of those from whom objects were taken and builds the first global open database of stolen artefacts actively requested for return. But this isn’t just about documentation, it’s an institution for action. From protest templates to legal resources, the museum supports communities in their fight for restitution, all while dissecting the colonial logic of traditional museums. An institution that studies the studiers, this is heritage work with teeth. In collaboration with Leo Pakarati & Paula Rossetti. Funded by Stimuleringsfonds, Open Call Fresh Perspectives

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Last month we went to Rapa Nui 🗿. Not to “consult the locals” or do a photoshoot with a Moai, but to kick off Phase 2 of the Museum of Stolen Artefacts and deepen our connections with the people actually living the legacies of colonial looting. ⚔️ We met up with our collaborators Leo Pakarati and Paula Rossetti, made new friends like the Museo Rapa Nui and Museo Aukara Rapa Nui, and started weaving a network with brilliant people and organisations already doing the work around restitution and Rapa Nui heritage. 🌺 Because this isn’t just about artefacts, it’s about action, accountability, and multiplicity.🌋 At MoSA, we know that Indigenous communities aren’t a monolith. There’s no single “Rapa Nui position” on restitution, and we’re not here to flatten complexity into neat narratives. Some people want the Moai back. Others don’t. That’s the point: colonial violence was not uniform, so neither are the responses to it. We embrace that. We centre it. ✊🏾 This isn’t a museum of consensus. It’s a museum of refusal, conflict, reclamation. We don’t do “post-colonial” fairy tales, because let’s be honest, colonialism hasn’t packed its bags. It just changed outfits. 💅 We’re building MoSA as a Museum of Action. Protest templates, legal tools, a growing open database of stolen artefacts with active calls for return, this is heritage work with bite. 📃💻 So yeah, we went to Rapa Nui. And we came back even more sure: it’s time to build this movement from the ground up, mess and all. 🌱🪨 Powerful island, powerful people. Māuru-uru Rapa Nui! 🔥🌺