This museum was founded in 1901 based on the private collection of Wilhelm Joest and it has historically functioned as a repository for approximately 60,000 artefacts and 100,000 photographs from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania. In recent years, under a new direction, the museum has moved away from the “cabinet of curiosities” model, instead focusing on decolonisation and restitution. It’s designed to be a ‘woke’ venue, but using the word in a positive manner to be inclusive and to redefine how the collections are shown.
I’m not entirely sure where the museum is going with this, as their website doesn’t explain and I didn’t understand it when it was there. I don’t know whether they mean the museum, the exhibition or the wider global community. I’m assuming they mean that indigenous collections are not rooted in the past, they are still relevant and not part of history.
I think it’s true that some of the museum’s original collection notes from the early twentieth century treated the indigenous exhibits as something which were rather basic and inferior. There was certainly a colonial mindset when this museum was put together.