Datahub

The datahub is a digital platform that brings together, enriches and provides insight into information on collections from colonial contexts. This brings together information that is currently scattered across various institutions. The datahub gives communities and researchers the opportunity to add perspectives on the data.

What information can you find in the datahub?

In the datahub, collections are searchable with (information about) objects that fall within the following criteria:

• They were made and/or acquired in former Dutch trading posts and colonies;
• They were made and/or acquired in former trading posts, colonies and mandated territories of other modern colonial powers;
• They were acquired outside the above areas but in a context or as a result of colonial unequal power relations;
• They were acquired after formal decolonisation, but with a likely earlier history of being made and/or acquired in a colonial context.

Besides objects from a colonial context, objects with a colonial context are also kept in the Netherlands. These are objects that were not made in the colonised world, but do refer to it, for instance through the material, through the people and landscapes depicted, the style and imagery in which they were made or the functions they had. It is not the aim of the datahub to include these objects as well.

Report Workshop Against Opacity

A crucial moment in the development of the datahub has been an international workshop and symposium in May 2023. For this week-long exchange, guests from countries and areas where the Dutch had colonies or trading posts of importance (such as Aruba, Curacao, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sint Eustatius and Suriname) were invited. To learn more about this workshop, please find the report below.