Museums of anthropology, of civilisations, of cultures around the world or of early arts in Europe and the United States are in crisis. In most instances, this is not a new situation. During the inter-war years, they had to legitimise themselves as institutions that were different to natural science or history museums. Later on, beginning in 1960, they found themselves forced to abandon their ahistorical discourse and to introduce cultural dynamics into their museographies, with scant success.

Today, many of them have moved into the era of recognition, valuing the creative genius of people whose poetic action gave rise to objects, and reproducing in their rooms an aestheticist museography. Objects of tangible culture have become artworks and are as dead as those to which Alain Resnais and Chris Marker referred in Statues Also Die, their famous documentary of 1953. However, the current crisis in museums is due not so much to their museographies as to the origin of the heritage they hold. A heritage made up of knowledge, archives – of documents, photographs, iconographic archives, etc. – and objects amassed during the colonial period. A time of institutionally legitimised violence in which science connived.

Concreta 18 (autumn 2021) reflects on the restitution and reparation of African heritage in the post-colonial context. A subject confined to the return of objects gathered or looted that often ignores the intangible aspect outside museum walls. This issue is co-edited by Hasan G. López Sanz and Tania Safura Adam and includes contributions by Massamba Lea Guèye, Ángela Rodríguez Perea, Françoise Vergès, Catarina Simão, Kader Attia, Sammy Baloji, Grada Kilomba, Yinka Esi Graves, Miguel Ángel Rosales, Javier Fernández Vázquez, Dan Hicks, Iván de la Nuez and Léopold Sédar Senghor.

Yinka Esi Graves (London, 1983). A dance artist whose work explores the links between flamenco and other forms of bodily expression, primarily from a contemporary African diaspora perspective. After graduating in History of Art in Sussex (2005), she settled in Spain in 2009 to train at the Amor de Dios flamenco school in Madrid and then in Seville, with teachers such as Yolanda Heredia, La Lupi and Andrés Marín. Yinka’s short pieces have been performed at Sadler’s Wells (England) and Gibney (New York), among other venues.

Hasan G. López Sanz (Valencia, 1978). Holds a PhD in Philosophy and a BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology and Philosophy. He lectures in aesthetics and art theory in the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Valencia and is an assistant lecturer on the Master’s in Photography, Art and Technique at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

Iván de la Nuez (Havana, 1964). Essayist and curator based in Barcelona. He was the founder of La Virreina Centre de la Imatge in Barcelona and its first director (2000-2009), in addition to director of activities at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB, 2009- 2011). His exhibitions include The Possible Island (1995), Human Park (2001), Postcapital (2006), Atopia (2010), Iconocracy (2015), Never Real / Always True (2019) and The Parallel Utopia (2019). He currently works freelance and as a consultant for Gutun Zuria, Bilbao International Literature Festival.

Miguel Ángel Rosales (Jerez de la Frontera, 1964). Anthropologist, director and scriptwriter of documentary films. He has written and directed several short and medium-length films, such as Luz en los márgenes (2013), Atrapados al vuelo (2012) and La maroma (2010). He is currently working on various audiovisual and film projects related to Afro-descendant memory in Spain and developing a research project at Pablo de Olavide University (Seville) on historical Afro-Andalusian communities. His first feature film, Gurumbé. Canciones de tu memoria negra (Intermedia Producciones, 2016), deals for the first time in film with the Afro-descendant presence in Spain and its legacy in flamenco and Andalusian culture. He is currently working with Yinka Esi Graves on her piece entitled The Disappearing Act.

Tania Safura Adam (Maputo, 1979). Journalist, cultural producer and founder of Radio Africa Magazine. In her multidisciplinary practice, she explores African migrations, Black diasporas and African popular music.

Laura Vallés Vílchez (Castellón de la Plana, 1984). Cofounder and director of Concreta. Since 2016, she has been studying for her PhD at the Royal College of Art in London, where she lives, gives classes on curating and currently directs 4Cs From Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture.