RSG Benin Kingdom Museum Announces UK Bronze-Making Fellowship Cohort 2026

The Restitution Study Group is proud to announce the second cohort of the Benin Kingdom Museum Bronze-Making Fellowship in the United Kingdom.

This UK fellowship cohort builds upon the work that first began in New York and the UK in January 2025 with the Restitution Study Group’s Benin Kingdom Museum (BKM). As with the 2025 cohorts, part of the funding for this UK cohort will be a reparations contribution from an heir of transatlantic human traffickers — an effort to foster self-determination and repair of cultural identity.

The Benin Kingdom Museum creates opportunities for Afrodescendants to reconnect with the hidden history of the Benin bronzes, including the exchange of manilla currency by the Benin Kingdom for captives they sold to Europeans into chattelized enslavement during the transatlantic human trafficking period. At a time when many original Benin bronzes are being repatriated to Nigeria under the authority of the Oba of the Benin Kingdom, the BKM is also working to prevent the erasure of Afrodescendant contributions to these magnificent works.

The fellowship seeks to ensure that Afrodescendants understand not only the extraordinary artistic and cultural significance of the bronzes, but also the hidden human cost behind their production. What makes the UK fellowship unique is that fellows are not only learning how to 3D scan and manufacture Benin bronzes, but they will also study original Benin bronzes in stakeholder museums across the United Kingdom and create original works inspired by that engagement. These works include painting, fashion design, prose, multimedia, poetry, and other creative forms.

Each fellow’s work will become part of the permanent collection of the Benin Kingdom Museum, whose flagship location is expected to open later this year in Harlem, New York. The Harlem museum will serve as the anchor institution for a broader international initiative that now includes plans for a future Benin Kingdom Museum presence in the United Kingdom, as well as in Brazil and the Caribbean.

Fellows

Akhem Bell

Akhem Bell is the 12-year-old founder and illustrator of Repair Nation, a clothing brand that uses fashion to display Black and African history in a creative and accessible way. For the Benin Kingdom Museum fellowship, Akhem plans to create clothing designs inspired by the Benin bronzes. He believes that Repair Nation is about bringing history back into everyday life and repairing what has been lost. Through his designs, he hopes people will ask questions about where they come from, what these images represent, and how they can create their own paths toward liberation.

Daniel Davidson

Daniel Davidson is a British-born community advocate of Nigerian and Jamaican heritage. He is an active member of the Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide campaign and serves as a trustee of the Moss Side and Hulme Community Development Trust. He has expressed a desire to write reflections inspired by his study of the Benin bronzes and hopes to inspire others to embrace the legacy of Afrikan culture and apply lessons from the past to create a better future for humanity.

Holly Graham

Holly Graham is a London-based artist and researcher working predominantly with print, audio, photography, text, and moving image, often in response to archives and museum collections. Much of her work explores the ways memory, narrative, and fiction shape collective histories. Her practice is rooted in responsible storytelling and in amplifying quieter, overlooked histories. Her recent projects include commissions with Manchester Art Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, TACO!, UP Projects, Barnet Council, and Locales in Rome. She is an Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, Co-Founder of Cypher BILLBOARD, and is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Westminster.

Sai Murray

Sai Murray is a writer, poet, performance artist, graphic artist, and community organizer of Bajan, Afrikan, and English heritage. He is an organizing member of the Maangamizi Educational Trust and the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE). Through Liquorice Fish, he has designed, edited, and published more than thirty books, resources, and toolkits for grassroots community organizations. Sai’s poetry collection, Ad-liberation, and his novella have been published by Peepal Tree Press. His work reflects a long-standing commitment to reparatory justice, Pan-Afrikan consciousness, and cultural empowerment.

Selection Team

The Restitution Study Group is grateful to the two UK organizations and their leaders for helping identify fellows for this cohort: Esther Xosei, Executive Director of Maangamizi Educational Trust, and Connie Bell, Cultural Producer of Decolonising the Archive. Both organizations have played an important role in connecting the fellowship to communities committed to reparatory justice, historical truth, cultural preservation, and Afrodescendant empowerment.

The Maangamizi Educational Trust is known for its work around reparatory justice, Pan-Afrikan organizing, and community education related to the legacies of enslavement, colonialism, and genocide. Decolonising the Archive has focused on opening access to historical collections, challenging exclusionary narratives, and supporting artists, researchers, and cultural workers engaged in archival recovery and public memory.

Through museum study, artistic production, digital preservation, and bronze-making, fellows will help ensure that future generations have access to the full history, artistry, and meaning of the Benin bronzes for healing, cultural repair, and education.

Orientation Recording:

To learn more: www.theBKM.org

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