Fowler Films: Dahomey

What happens when looted heritage returns home? In Dahomey, acclaimed filmmaker Mati Diop offers a poetic and thought-provoking meditation on the 2021 repatriation of 26 royal artifacts from France to the Republic of Benin. Named after the pre-colonial West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in present-day southern Benin, the film blends archival footage, vérité-style observation, and imagined dialogue to explore the emotional, political, and cultural dimensions of restitution.

As young people and elders engage with the returned treasures, Dahomey traces the tensions and hopes that emerge in the wake of colonial violence. The film poses urgent questions about historical ownership, cultural memory, and the right to narrate the past.

Join us for a screening and conversation with Silvia Forni, Shirley and Ralph Shapiro Director at the Fowler and Karen Milbourne, J. Sanford Miller Family Director at The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, as we reflect on heritage, identity, and the ongoing global reckoning with colonial legacies.

Silvia Forni joined the Fowler Museum as Shirley and Ralph Shapiro Director in December 2022. At the Fowler she is leading a team of dedicated scholars and museum professionals deeply invested in presenting underrepresented artists and art histories and curating exhibitions and programs with and for the international communities of greater Los Angeles. Before moving to LA, she served as senior curator of global Africa and deputy vice president of the Department of Art & Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. She is also associated faculty with the Department of Anthropology of the University of Toronto and the Department of Art History at UCLA.

Karen E. Milbourne is the J. Sanford Miller Family Director at The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia. Formerly Senior Curator and Acting Head of Knowledge Production at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, Milbourne has curated and co-curated over 20 major exhibitions, including Earth Matters, I Am...Contemporary Women Artists of Africa, and From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya with Ayana V. Jackson. A specialist in contemporary African art and the arts of western Zambia, she has published widely and received numerous honors, including the Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize and the ACASA Award for Curatorial Excellence.

This program is co-presented with Villa Albertine and the Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles.

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