Decolonising museum practices

Begun as a staff-led initiative in October 2019, the Decolonising Reading and Listening Group brings together staff from across the museum to interrogate the museum’s colonial and imperial histories by reflecting, discussing and sharing their knowledge and experiences.

Over two years, we ran a series of workshops with more than 100 members to discuss the Maqdala cup. This generated more questions
than answers. Our display is the beginning of a process as we interrogate the ongoing impacts of our collections.

Written by: V&A Decolonising Reading and Listening Group
Published: May 2025

Description: Photograph of chalice (museum no. M.26-2005)
Credit: Looted by British troops in Maqdala in 1868. Deposited at the museum by H M Treasury in 1872.

Description: ‘Potential history: Unlearning Imperialism’
Maker: Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Verso Books

Description: ‘Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum’
Maker: Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn, Routledge

Description: ‘Colonial lives of property: Law, Land and Racial Regimes of Ownership’
Maker: Brenna Bhandar, Duke University Press

Description: ‘Toward the African Revolution: Political essays’
Maker: Frantz Fanon, Haakon Chevalier (translator), Grove Press

Description: ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’
Maker: Paulo Freire, Penguin Classics

Description: ‘Essential essays, Volume 2: Identity and Diaspora’
Maker: Stuart Hall, David Morley, Duke University Press

Description: ‘Dividing the Spoils: Perspectives on Military Collections and the British Empire’
Maker: Henrietta Lidchi and Stuart Allan, Manchester University Press

Description: ‘African Europeans: An Untold History’
Maker: Olivette Otele, Basic Books

Description: ‘The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in Our Museums & Why We Need to Talk About It’
Maker: Alice Procter, Cassell

Description: ‘Orientalism’
Maker: Edward W Said, Penguin

Description: ‘Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes’
Maker: Barnaby Phillips, Oneworld

Description: ‘Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat’
Maker: Bénédicte Savoy, Princeton University Press

Description: ‘Letters from Ethiopian rulers: Early and Mid-Nineteenth Century’
Maker: David L Appleyard and A K Irvine (translators), Oxford University Press

Description: ‘The Prince Who Walked with Lions’
Maker: Elizabeth Laird, Macmillan Children's Books

Description: ‘Flashman on the March’
Maker: George Macdonald Fraser, HarperCollins

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