114. Africa's Buildings

A growing movement in the art world has sought restitution and repatriation for the thousands of objects stolen from Africa during campaigns of colonialization. A new book, “Africa’s Buildings: Architecture and the Displacement of Cultural Heritage,” by Brown University professor Itohan Osayimwese, provides another dimension of scholarship, asserting that these objects were often more than the modern, Euro-centric characterization as “art”: many were integral parts of buildings and thus should be understood as architecture. Unfrozen interviews Prof. Osayimwese on what this new understanding means for the practice of reconciliation with the past, but also for imagining a different future for material culture on the continent.