digital repatriation | Ethereum Foundation Blog

Here is an update from Next Billion Fellow Mulenga Kapwepwe and her initiative “Summitshare”. To learn more about the Next Billion Fellowship program and how to apply, visit: https://nxbn.ethereum.foundation/.

Aim for Kapwepwefounder Zambian Women’s History Museum In 2022, we asked a small group of young tech enthusiasts in Zambia the following questions: Could something called “blockchain technology” offer new utility in historical preservation? She started a new plan aimed at: digital humanitiesWe connect with young people interested in technology who want to apply their talents to the world of art, culture and history. The group of developers, designers and artists she is working with share a passion for “web3” and together they discussed some properties and features of blockchain. So she began to consider how this could be applied to a really difficult problem of African heritage: the repatriation of artefacts.

Historically, many parts of the world have seen material cultural heritage housed in European and American museums, raising complex questions of ownership, history, and identity. In the African context, this problem is particularly salient. 90% of Africa’s material cultural heritage It is currently located in the West, according to a 2018 Sarr and Savoy report. Restoring African Cultural Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics¹. Discussions about physical repatriation have been ongoing for years, but geopolitical and logistical complexities often make it difficult to take practical steps toward a solution.

The group had the following idea: If the physical repatriation of artifacts is too tied to geopolitical, cultural, and logistical issues, perhaps digital cast Choose an artifact as a possible alternative. By linking digital artifacts to physical originals, this method can capture and evoke similar connections to the heritage, creativity, history, and valuable knowledge and lessons of the past that museum users experience first-hand, while providing a new perspective on museums. It may be possible. Physical artifacts – form innovative ways to connect with cultural heritage. With appropriate supporting technologies, African artifacts currently housed in European and American museums can be made accessible to the Africans whose ancestors helped create them.

Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies have advanced enough to allow high-resolution scans of real-world objects to be displayed on screens, projectors, or VR goggles in museum exhibits. However, scanned objects still require required properties. unique To have a meaningful sense of provenance, connected to reality. If artifacts stored in remote museums can be scanned, created, and displayed as unique, provenance-verified digital items, researchers, curators, and museum patrons can engage with them in new ways. Moreover, social coordination around these digital artifacts enables meaningful interactions, enabling communities and professionals to collaboratively manage, share, and study cultural heritage in new ways.

Imagine if ticket revenue from an exhibition of southern African masks in Brussels (or Paris or London) directly benefited communities in Lusaka (or Harare or Pretoria) – communities with a real, tangible connection to the artifacts. For many community members who may never have the opportunity to see an object in person, this digital access can provide researchers and anthropologists with personal memories or unique cultural context they may never have known about. These contributions can help “recontextualize” these artifacts, restoring meaning and relevance to items that have often been presented without the voices and perspectives of those most closely connected to them.

The spark of curiosity sparked by this question led the team to lay the first foundations of a new approach to cultural preservation. This means connecting the heritage of the past with the technology of the present and delivering it to those who value it most. .

history machine

Venkatesh RaoIn a lecture titled “Blood Coin”, describing blockchain as “a technology of history.” It provides a permanent, accessible medium for recording records on a ledger that will not fade or become distorted over time. This is blockchain ideal tool or technology For museums and anthropologists. Blockchain is also an efficient way to enact “money” and other systems that function as a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. These properties allow blockchain to be a medium that can “infuse history” into records of value and ownership to preserve and acknowledge narratives of historical debt and reparation.

Together with Mulenga Kapwepwe to explore this potential. Thomas Gondwe, Please bless Amopa-Sekiand mario seereCo-founded SummitShare. Together they set out to develop innovative digital methods to address the complex realities of history. SummitShare’s approach emphasizes interactive, participatory, and educational experiences that connect digitally savvy audiences with the past and provide meaningful connections with their cultural heritage through modern technology.

Just as the Internet fundamentally changed the way information spreads, blockchain can transform the way history is preserved, providing the following forms: Temporary permanence. By creating digital representations of artifacts and documenting their provenance—and their journey through society and time—SummitShare democratizes access to cultural heritage. Many artifacts in European museums today lack complete provenance, but living communities can hold valuable context (songs, stories, memories) that can deepen understanding and restore meaning. Digital casts of artifacts preserve this context while allowing heritage communities to share in the benefits these objects generate.

Proof of Concept: Origins of WHMZ

The SummitShare team, in partnership with the Zambian Women’s History Museum, Swedish Ethnographic Museum Access catalogs and digital repositories of artifacts. This partnership provided SummitShare with valuable resources, including access to digital records containing provenance information and early 3D models of artifacts held in Swedish museum collections. Using these resources, the team began designing and modeling a 3D virtual exhibition showcasing artifacts from the rich historical context of Zambia and southern Africa. In addition to digital modeling, the project proposed tokenizing these artifacts to encode and preserve their provenance, marking an important step toward creating a decentralized digital repository.

Development and growth under Ethereum’s Next Billion Fellowship program

In 2023, Mulenga (leader of the SummitShare team) participated in the Ethereum Foundation’s Next Billion Fellowship program to improve the project. The project obtained valuable open source contributions to the smart contract and initial subgraph design from anonymous contributors. Hanan Haji AhmedA Palestinian designer who contributed early work amid serious challenges in the Gaza Strip. Daniel Tembo, an experienced 3D artist with a background in game design, serves as SummitShare’s virtual realm designer and has created virtual exhibition environments to bring artifacts to life in an immersive digital format.

Leading Women Exhibitions: Models of Digital and Physical Collaboration

Throughout 2024, the SummitShare team will prepare for its first exhibition, deepening research on local repatriation efforts and forming key partnerships, including collaboration with the Octant Accelerator to expand the platform. This exhibition, titled Leading ladies, It focuses on the lives and artifacts of six Zambian women who occupied various social roles, including generals, political activists, and tribal leaders. These artifacts provide unique historical insight and inspiration to modern society.

SummitShare allows museums and galleries to create exhibitions with both physical and digital elements, each linked via smart contracts. This creates unique synergies, including selling tickets to European exhibitions in support of African cultural programs and combining digital artifacts with tangible benefits for cultural heritage communities.

SummitShare’s exhibitions are not just sets of images and models of works of art or objects. It is tied to a set of smart contracts that give things unique tags and allow them to be represented on the Internet of Value. With SummitShare smart contracts, we gain the provenance and uniqueness needed to make meaningful connections to digital items.

The platform also uses the same set of contracts to manage ticket sales as well as interactive features of exhibitions involving digitized objects. Curation costs, proceeds, benefits and the relationships between them are all structured to return value to the custodians of all heritage and cultural values, both historically and geographically.

that Leading Ladies The exhibition highlights the cultural origins of the artefacts in a special partnership with the Gwembe Valley community in Zambia. The aim is to ensure that the Gwembe Valley community directly benefits from exhibition proceeds and participation.

Before launching this exhibition, the SummitShare team met with Gwembe Valley leaders to understand conservation methods, governance and information sharing practices, which helped inform how the platform integrates traditional governance into decision-making processes.

Gwembe Valley’s support extends to: 150 communities Within their jurisdictions, they provide an incredible opportunity for SummitShare to reach a broad and interconnected audience.

future-oriented history

SummitShare is not just about African heritage, it’s about solving the global problem of cultural disconnection through human collaboration. By placing history and culture on-chain, we create an immutable record and bridge between past and present, preserving heritage while empowering heritage communities.

The core of SummitShare is: genesis (information) and people. These guiding principles fulfill the mission of bridging gaps in access, knowledge, and representation. This journey is one of research, experimentation, and systems design that enables democratized access to cultural and economic elements that have long been inaccessible.

that major women’s exhibitions Supporters can now get early access. If you would like to join the SummitShare initiative and contribute to the Gwembe Valley community, you can find out more about the virtual exhibition and secure access ahead of its official opening on 13 December 2024. On the SummitShare website.

If you work in a museum, university or heritage space and would like to learn more about SummitShare or collaborate on an exhibition, please contact us: info@summitshare.co Or contact me nextbillion@ethereum.foundation.

Together, let us redefine cultural heritage for a connected, distributed world that values ​​shared stories and inclusive innovation.

If you are a leader, creator, and builder who solves human-centered challenges, We’re looking for your stories! now you can Apply for Cohorts 5 and 6 of the Next Billion Fellowship. Cohort 5 applications will be considered until January 12, 2025.