Scholars have estimated that more than 90% of the material cultural legacy of Africa is not found on the African continent.
Through a representative sample database of diasporic African art, collected and curated from The Africa Collection of the Musee du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, France, and built using the open-source platform Omeka, the mission of The RAAD Project is that of Revealing African Art Diaspora caused by pillage during the French Colonial period in Africa. The RAAD Project’s intended audiences for revealing this are scholars, students, and an informed, active global citizenry.
In future phases, visitors to the project will be invited to add to the database, so that The RAAD Project may serve as an aggregate, online hub of diasporic art.
Through the establishment of an open-source, digital home for art displaced by colonialism, The RAAD Project hopes to reveal the complex provenance of African art as a call for both content and social justice toward the global goal of African Art restitution.