Stolen Sculptures

I designed these three posters as a series during a final year university module, aiming to help us develop our research and understanding for our major project. At this point of this module, I hadn’t quite become set on using cabinets of curiosities for my major project, and I was researching how cabinets of curiosities led to museums. I then got into looking at the oldest museums in the UK, and came across some facts about the British Museum. Through this research, I discovered that the British Museum houses a large range of stolen artefacts, that they have frequently refused to return. I chose three of the most well known stolen artefacts, which are the Parthenon Sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, the Hoa Hakananai’a, and the Benin Bronzes. I researched these artefacts extensively, learning a lot about their history, and the battle for ownership that have gone on between their origin country, and the British Museum. Many of these artefacts are incredibly important to the culture and history of their origin country, hence why they’re continuing to fight for them to be returned. Each of my posters contains a time-line of the artefacts history, I detailed when it was made, when it was stolen, and the debates continuing since then.