In this video, architect Mariam Issoufou reflects on the museum as an architectural and cultural typology shaped by histories of extraction, erasure, and unequal power relations. Drawing on personal experience, architectural practice, and pedagogical research, she questions Western models of collecting, preservation, and display, and explores restitution as a process that extends beyond the return of objects to include repair, dialogue, and community engagement. In conversation with Philip Ursprung, Issoufou discusses alternative futures for museums as spaces of care, ritual, and encounter — places that move away from accumulation and spectacle toward responsibility, plurality, and cultural continuity.
“Now might actually be the perfect time for museums to transition away from being places of gluttony and incessant collecting, and instead become places of repair — places of community, of encounter, and of coming into contact with the other in less violent ways.”
— Mariam Issoufou
