The Federal Office of Culture (OFC) will allocate around 1.1 million francs to fourteen provenance research projects carried out by Swiss museums in 2025 and 2026. The Fribourgeois Bible+Orient Museum is one of them.
This funding aims to support projects which will look either at the colonial context or at the Nazi era. Among the fourteen museums supported, eight of them will explore the colonial period. Two are from French-speaking Switzerland: in addition to the Bible+Orient Museum, which will receive 100,000 francs, the Geneva Museum of Art and History will receive 99,411 francs, writes the OFC in a press release on Tuesday. The others are located in the large German-speaking cities.
Tracing the origin of a problematic heritage
Research projects from six museums were selected on cultural property potentially looted during the era of National Socialism. The Historical Museum of Lausanne with 100,000 francs is the only one in French-speaking Switzerland. In German-speaking Switzerland, these are the Kunstmuseum of Bern, Basel, Lucerne, St. Gallen as well as the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft.
This work makes it possible to trace the origin of a cultural heritage with a potentially problematic past and to then communicate the results. Initially focused on art looted during the era of National Socialism, this support, launched in 2016, has since 2018 also focused on research on goods from colonial and archaeological contexts.
In addition to conventional provenance research projects, digitalization and enhancement of archive funds will also be supported, as well as research and mediation projects, in collaboration with countries of origin.
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