‘Postcolonial?’ at House of European History Confronts Colonialism’s Afterlives

The House of European History in Brussels presents ‘Postcolonial?’, an exhibition curated by Kieran Burns, Ayoko Mensah, Simina Badica, and Joanna Urbanek, which challenges the notion that colonialism ended with political independence. On view until 14 March 2027, the show juxtaposes historical objects and documents with contemporary artworks and eight personal testimonies to trace the persistence of colonial structures in systems of extraction, racial classification, cultural representation, and institutional memory. Artists include Yinka Shonibare, Susan Stockwell, Sammy Baloji, Alexis Peskine, Hew Locke, and Niyi Olagunju. The exhibition is structured to move between public historical narratives and semi-private spaces for reflection, addressing the ethics of exhibiting violence and the museum’s own role in colonial knowledge production. Curators emphasize multi-perspectivity, foregrounding women’s roles in resistance movements, with six of eight personal stories told by women. Notable historical references include the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, which compensated enslavers, and Haiti’s forced payment to France until 1947. The exhibition is part of an ongoing institutional commitment to debate European history.