The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) is set to re-open its doors in December 2018. To mark this occasion, the museum and the Egmont – Royal Institute for International Relations, will organise a conference on 17, 18 and 19 September 2018 on ‘Sharing Past and Future: Strengthening African-European Connections’.

The conference wants to engage in a critical reflection about the ways in which Africans and Europeans can, in the future, collaborate in a shared and sustainable manner. Attitudes towards the past, present and future relations between Africa and Europe do not necessarily correspond to one another and are currently the subject of an oftentimes heated debate, both in Europe and Africa. The starting point of this conference is the acknowledgement of a shared past and deep-seated mutual respect.

Some two hundred African and European stakeholders, academics, opinion leaders, representatives from civil society, artists and policymakers will engage in dialogue and look at:

– how new modes of cooperation offer possibilities for sustainable development and provide an answer to new challenges, and how relations between African and European societies can be reinforced;

– how an enhanced unlocking of historical archives can, despite the distance and the pain suffered, contribute to building a shared memory, but also how history could be written from different perspectives and on a more equal footing;

– how cultural African heritage in Europe can be managed in a shared way;

– how the involvement from contemporary artists can give more meaning to an interlinked view on past and future;

– which role African diasporas can take up as connecting actors between Africa and Europe.