Judy: There is a debate over how
and when to repatriate art.
One clear case of looting has
leaders staking strong stand.
Jeffrey brown went to look, as
part of our arts and culture
series, campus.
Reporter: The brass hand from
Nigeria.
A treasure exhibited in a famed
museum, but note the plaque are
telling us how this came to be.
After looting, it was sold to
the museum.
>> We need to come to terms with
the history and potential of the
museum.
Reporter: What stories do
museums tell us, what should
they tell us?
One answer comes at the
redesigned Africa galleries at
the university of Pennsylvania
museum of archeology and
anthropology, known as the Penn
museum.
>> How do we take that activated
conversation and transform the
narrative in here?
Seize this moment to transform
the museum, the narratives in
the museum and the service we
can provide to the community
about the national narrative,
about the international
narrative, about the narrative
of humanity.
Reporter: Zuberi is a professor
of sociology and african
studies at the university.
Also the host of history
detectives.
>> It's one of the key items in
our new galleries.
Beautiful.
Reporter: And a filmmaker.
>> If we're going to tell the
story of human civilization, we
must reconfigure the spaces to
speak to various audiences in
ways that remove the race bias
, and prejudice, which are the
foundation of museums
everywhere.
These museums were to justify
empire, they were to justify the
colonization, the
marginalization of certain
groups of people.
We have to challenge that.
Reporter: That's done in
different ways to make clear the
history of colonialism and
enslavement that led to these
objects being here, and reframe
the objects themselves, for
example, through photographs
showing how they would have
appeared in their original
religious functions.
There is also an effort to
connect past and present through
the commissioning of works by
contemporary artists from the
African diaspora.
>> We wanted a story that said,
this past is in conversation
with our now.
That we here are standing here
looking at these objects and
they have a meaning now.
>> Idea is an introduction, an
invitation.
Come on in, check us out.
Reporter: Major questions
surround the name used for a
wide variety of artifacts that
date to at least the 16th
century.
Their story is well-documented,
an 1897 British invasion, the
looting of as many as 10,000
objects.
Photographs from the era even
use the word blue -- and
ultimate dispersal to many of
the world's leading museums.
In recent years, some
institutions have begun to
return the treasures, including
the smithsonian which held a
ceremony in October to hand over
29 objects to Nigerian officials
and a member of the royal family
of Benin.
Smithsonian secretary Lonnie
bunche.
>> This is a reckoning for
museums, for museums to no
longer collect things because we
think it's right.
It's about not so much what we
correct.
Reporter: The Penn museum,
founded in 1887, holds some one
million objects spanning 10,000
years of history, and is also a
leading research center.
It has been undergoing a major
renovation in recent years,
updating its exhibition spaces,
reevaluating its collection and
the information it offers the
public while also addressing
several controversies
surrounding its holdings.
One involve, the Morton
collection, more than 1300 human
skulls gathered in the 19th
century and used to advance
racist eugenics theories.
It came to the Penn museum in
the 1960s.
More recent research suggested
it includes the remains of 13
black philadelphians.
Plans for a reburial are
ongoing.
Another recent revelation, that
the museum held the partial
remains of a victim killed in
the 1985 bombing by the
Philadelphia police of a
residential rowhouse, home of
members of the black liberation
move organization.
The remains were returned last
year, but the university and
museum face continuing lawsuits.
Museum director Christopher
woods, who arrived a year ago,
has a simple policy mantra for
all repudiation questions.
Let's do the right thing.
>> I think repatriation work is
increasingly going to be a big
part of what this museum does
and what museums like ours do.
Reporter: His museum has agreed
to return all of its Benin
bronzes.
The best scenarios, he thinks,
can be a win-win.
>> When we talk about
repatriation, it can be a kind
of all or nothing, send it all
back, it's gone, issue ended.
>> I think that's the wrong way
to think about it.
It is not simply a matter of
fedex-ing the material back.
It is about building these types
of partnerships and
collaborations.
In an ideal situation, we would
be allowed to keep some portion
of the material on long-term
loan, acknowledging the
ownership of that material.
And the ability to have, say, a
conservation training program or
to conduct archeological
fieldwork in Nigeria, to have an
exchange of personnel and ideas
with our counterparts in
Nigeria.
This is exciting, and it really
enhances the portfolio of
projects that a research museum
engages in.
Reporter: But, it's complicated.
The Benin bronzes are a
clear-cut case of looting.
So much else here and elsewhere
was collected in ways that were
then legal but now at the very
least raise questions of power
imbalances and collection
practices that are no longer
considered ethical.
And tukufu zuberi seeks to
complicate it further.
Yes, the Benin objects must be
returned, he says, but that
can't be the end of the
conversation for museums.
They must engage more with
African-American communities and
rethink the entire mission.
>> Restitution can become
whitewashing the issue if we
forget that these objects came
with people, that the
enslavement of Africans, the
enslavement of Africa and the
colonization in Africa are part
and parcel of what we are
looking at when we see these
objects.
So, you can't just sever that
relationship.
Send them back and forget about
it.
That would be bad.
It is bad where people are doing
it, because they are not
creating a conversation.
It is too late to say you will
put things back the way they
were, because they are not like
they were.
Reporter: In the meantime,
negotiations continue for the
return of the Benin bronzes.
For the pbs newshour, I am
Jeffrey brown at the Penn museum
in Philadelphia.