Sameer Farooq and Dan Hicks: Restitution and Reimagining Collections

TPL in partnership with the Toronto Biennial of Art and Canada<->International, present artist Sameer Farooq and curator and author Dan Hicks in conversation with Tandazani Dhlakama at the Toronto Reference Library's Appel Salon

Museums have long been sites of contested memory, institutions that claim to preserve culture while often displaying the spoils of colonialism. Collections assembled through empire sit behind glass, their violent origins obscured by curatorial labels. Objects torn from their communities are renamed "artifacts" and their stories rewritten. But a growing movement is asking: who has the right to collect, to display, to tell these stories? And what would it mean to fundamentally reimagine how museums relate to the communities they claim to serve?

Artist Sameer Farooq’s, Flatbread Library, a large-scale sculpture mapping Toronto's diversity through flatbreads from bakeries across the city, was a standout of the 2024 Toronto Biennial of Art. His work explores how everyday objects carry stories of migration, belonging, and cultural identity. Oxford University professor Dan Hicks, author of the groundbreaking The Brutish Museums and the newly released Every Monument Will Fall: A Story of Remembering and Forgetting (named one of Art Forum's Books of 2025), has become one of the world's leading voices on cultural restitution, challenging museums to reckon with their colonial foundations. ROM Curator of Global Africa Tandazani Dhlakama actively upends traditional collecting practices as she takes stock of and reimagines the future of the ROM's Global Africa collection.

This conversation emerges from Farooq and Hicks's recent time together during Farooq’s residency at Worlding, UK (in collaboration with Canada <-> International), where they spent time at the Pitt Rivers Museum examining collections and discussing shared concerns about restitution, cultural ownership, and the ethics of display. How does the movement and migration of objects, both historical and contemporary, inform how we create museum displays? What does it mean to decolonize not just labels but the fundamental act of collecting itself? How do we move beyond simply acknowledging colonial violence to actually returning what was taken and engaging in meaningful reconciliation?

As monuments fall and museums face mounting pressure to reckon with their pasts, these three visionaries offer crucial perspectives on what comes next: new ways of contributing to, building, and exhibiting collections that honor rather than extract, that build relationships rather than reinforce hierarchies, that imagine museums as sites of repair rather than repositories of theft.

The 4th edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art opens on September 26, 2026.

About this event’s guests:

Sameer Farooq

Dan Hicks

Tandazani Dhlakama

Read more:

Every Monument Will Fall: A Story of Remembering and Forgetting

The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution

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PLAN YOUR VISIT:

Location: Concourse Event Space, North York Central Library (5120 Yonge St).

Time: Doors open 6:00pm, Event starts 7:00pm.

Tickets: Free registration required.

Ticket policy: We oversell these events to ensure that the greatest number of people have an opportunity to attend. Tickets guaranteed until 6:45pm or until capacity is reached. Seating first come, first served.

Accessibility: TPL is committed to accessibility. If you are Deaf or have a disability and would like to request accommodation for this event, please contact [email protected] or 416-393-7099 at least three weeks prior to the event.

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This event is part of our signature Salon Series, where we host local and international authors, artists and thinkers in conversation about their new books and big ideas.

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