Hello all We're back to say Happy New Year! Are we really only 8 days into 2021?

2020 was tough. But it was also the year @museumofbc were able to talk about #decolonisation #colonialarchives & #colonialhistory on a scale we never expected during a pandemic [THREAD]

In Jan we hosted #ChangingtheNarrative w/ @TheAfricaCentre-a 2day event bringing together activists, politicians, broadcasters, academics&curators to explore #heritage #archives #repatriation #MauMauEmergency #empire #reparations

Catch up on it all here: http://bit.ly/2GbDkbO 

In Feb we launched our #MauMau oral history interviews on our YouTube channel. We spoke to three veterans of the Mau Mau conflict and recorded their stories, including Wambugu wa Nyingi, who recalls his experience of the Hola massacre.

Watch them here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLON2hRPhJHJ6or14fKKosUjEsUd6SSyLq

Like many others worldwide, we wound down our activities in March due to the COVID pandemic.

But we did get a nice gift from @TheBookBunk in March-this vid of our #OperationLegacy doc screening at the McMillan Memorial Library in Nairobi from Aug 2019! https://tinyurl.com/y4zs8hts 

In June, we watched as Edward Colston's statue was rolled into the river in Bristol. We wrote about #Colston, what it meant for the statue to be torn down, #OperationLegacy & #BritishHistory in one of our most popular blogs this year

https://museumofbritishcolonialism.org/ourblog/2020/6/11/colston-has-fallen

In July, our work was featured in @Reuters ! They interviewed our co-founder @ChaoTayiana and spotlighted our efforts to create an online archive of British colonial detention camps in Kenya.

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1281568855731531776

#colonialism #history #archives #digitalarchives

August saw the launch of our exciting new project #PaperTrails, which platforms the new directions of research into British colonialism. We've featured blogs & interviews from @Klhullock1 @amalexathorn @MauyeSibongile @willokumu & Shreya Sharma. https://www.museumofbritishcolonialism.org/papertrails 

In Sept our co-founder @ChaoTayiana was featured by @bbcarts @BBCFOUR & @afuahirsch in #AfricanRenaissance for our ongoing collaboration with @AfricaDHeritage

(Oh and we also hit 10k followers - thank you twitter family! ) https://twitter.com/afuahirsch/status/1300485089663627272

In Oct we were so proud to host #AHistoryofEveryoneElse - "a book club for history, but with a decolonial lens" - by @rhianna_ilube and @mnsomji

You can catch up on the sessions you missed, including teach-ins about the Mau Mau of Kenya, here: https://www.museumofbritishcolonialism.org/ahistoryofeveryoneelse

Nov 2020 was BUSY! We kicked off the month by speaking on a panel about 'New Museums Doing Things Differently' at the @MuseumsAssoc conference. It was amazing to share a platform with @EEWomensMuseum and @SomalimuseumUK about how to be a museum without holding objects

Then in Nov we also launched an amazing new project #LostUnities , in collaboration with @JamesLowryATL & @chatereraf

Lost Unities is an online exhibition, platforming the demands of activists worldwide for the return of #displacedarchives

https://www.museumofbritishcolonialism.org/lost-unities 

THEN we did this!

"Imagining a Museum of British Colonialism" - an online event with @PriyamvadaGopal @DalrympleWill @ChaoTayiana @OforiattaAyim & chaired by @Nay_Landell

Nearly 2k people joined us from all over the world!

Watch it here:

In Dec we ended the year with a brand new exhibition in Nairobi

#DETENTION, a multimedia exhibition exploring #MauMau detention camps, was curated in collaboration w/ @BarazaLab

It's not too late to check it out for yourself! The exhibition will be up until the end of Jan

We're working hard to bring you more events, blogs & exciting new projects in 2021- watch this space!

You can keep supporting MBC by contributing to our Patreon fund: https://www.patreon.com/museumofbritishcolonialism

We're a 100% volunteer-led organisation & rely on your donations to deliver our work!

So thank you to everyone who supported our work during such a tough year! We couldn't have done this without you attending & participating in our events, engaging in conversations, debates & knowledge-sharing with us online & in person-it's been wonderful