The high tide of returning art after violent extraction brings a movement that deeply embeds the repatriated into contemporary art. Politically active in long term projects in Australia, Namibia, Benin and Mexico, Repatriates is a collective from and connected with communities involved in repatriations from European museums. Debates over the return of cultural belongings have usually been approached in terms of political and legal frameworks. Pressing beyond institutional debates, the collective examines how contemporary artists can offer new perspectives not just for understanding cultural heritage, but for enacting its return. Gathering the voices of artists, critics, filmmakers, curators, and historians, this book offers a range of approaches to the challenges and possibilities involved in repatriation processes around the world today.

Repatriates is an Artistic Research Collective responding to the complex political, historical, legal, and emotional dimensions that happen when major museums in Europe begin to return art works from their collections to communities from which were taken during colonization. Multiple voices are gathered together in order to produce a series of new artworks, films, books, workshops and exhibitions that will help to define the significance and future potential of repatriation of cultural heritage from museums to communities.

Established and led by TBA21-Academy and located in the Church of San Lorenzo in Venice, Ocean Space is a planetary center for exhibitions, research and public programs catalyzing critical ocean literacy, collaborative research, and environmental advocacy through the arts.