January 2023
Since the beginning of 2023, I have been a researcher on the project “(Tr)afican(t)s – Museums and Collections of Catalonia Facing Coloniality,” which aims to trace the origin and acquisition conditions of pieces and collections in Catalan museums from Morocco, Equatorial Guinea, and the Philippines.
The project takes as its reference framework a series of museums and collections located in Catalonia: in Barcelona, the Museu Etnològic i de Cultures del Món, the Museu de Ciències Naturals, and the Sabater Pi Collection at the University of Barcelona; in Banyoles, the Museu Darder; in Igualada, the Museu de la Pell i Comarcal de l’Anoia; in Vic, the Museu de l’Art de la Pell; and finally, in Vilanova i la Geltrú, the Biblioteca-Museu Víctor Balaguer.
These collections undergo provenance research, analysis methodologies that aim to restore with the utmost precision their conditions of entry into the museums where they are now housed and the acquisition processes carried out by their collectors, with the intention of evaluating the influence of the colonial situation on the configuration of museum collections in former metropolises.
The project is aligned with the broader set of reparative policies addressing colonial domination that have emerged in recent years in Europe, where the critical questioning of former ethnological and natural history museums is playing a central role.