Sara Relli, Understanding the Ideas of Cultural Hegemony and the Decolonization of Museums, The Collector, 10 January 2026
In recent years, museums and galleries all around the world have challenged the cultural hegemony imposed by colonialism by showcasing Indigenous artists and non-European languages.
Decolonization begins in museums. This was clear to Bénédicte Savoy, French art historian and restitution specialist, who resigned from the advisory board of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin in July 2017 to protest the museum’s unwillingness to fully acknowledge the colonial implications of its rich ethnological collection. Since then, many museums around the world, from Turin to Berlin, from Ottawa to Sydney, have finally begun to address the problematic issues of colonial exploitation and cultural hegemony that surround the acquisition of most of their artifacts.