At the Invisible Inventories exhibition opening, I’m handed a tote bag marked “ARE WE STILL PROTESTING THIS SH*T?” and an 86-page zine detailing some of the academic research and imaginings undertaken by the International Inventories Program (IIP). The databases of the 32,501 Kenyan objects identified across thirty European and North American collections thanks to the IIP’s two-year research project are not available to the public, but the exhibition hopes to open up exploration of their findings despite this bureaucratic setback.
Either side of the exhibition space are curtains of paper swinging softly in the wind – shipping labels. Each label reports the object’s place in the database under “IIP Object Number,” a package description identifying what the object is, some “anthropological” notes, sender information, date sent, and delivery address providing a glimpse into the database and a horrifying estimation of exactly what we know to have been lost.