About

Ukubuyiswa—meaning “to bring back” or “to restore to rightful place”—is both the title and guiding philosophy of this ongoing research and curatorial project. It names a process of spiritual and epistemic restitution: a return not only of objects, but of relations, voices, and presences displaced by colonial collecting. Rooted in African methodologies of care and co-research, Ukubuyiswa seeks to build a reparative bridge between African and European institutions through acts of witnessing, storytelling, and relational making.

Ukubuyiswa extends beyond local contexts to form an active dialogue between African epistemologies and Eastern European institutions. By bringing African frameworks of care, memory, and restitution into the European museum setting, the project contributes to reshaping how the global museum field engages with colonial histories.

The project examines what repair looks like when return cannot be physical. What do these archives teach us about silence, memory, and absence? Inspired by Molemo Moiloa’s call to think of restitution as the “rehabilitation of space(s),” through site visits, sound, story, digital mapping, and experimental curatorial work, we are activating these collections not as passive artefacts but as carriers of cosmology.