ReMixis project

Our collections include fourteen pre-Hispanic masks. They have never been studied, published or loaned, and until now have been presented rather discreetly in our exhibitions, these pieces, half of which belong to the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, have nonetheless begun to attract the attention of specialists in recent years, who are trying to revalue artefacts with a vague history and who are questioning the legitimacy of the presence of certain objects in our museums.

Launched in 2022 with financial support from the European Commission via IPERION HS, a consortium of 24 partners from 23 European countries, the ReMixis project focused on the study of the Mixtec mask in this collection (APC 196), a mask belonging to the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and deposited at MUMASK since 1986.

The aim of the analyses carried out by the institutions involved in the ReMixis project is to study the material and attempt to reconstruct the historical-geographical trajectory of this mask, which was made using the technique known as "turquoise mosaic", a technique consisting of applying tesserae of precious materials to a wooden form. To our knowledge, nearly a hundred masks of this type are held in the world's major public collections. Their remarkable nature is internationally recognised, yet these pieces have generally been completely excluded from the world of scientific research because of their uncertain trajectory.

The scientific community believes that studying and publishing this type of object is tantamount to condoning looting or illicit trade. But the fact that these objects are kept out of sight and, by extension, invisible, makes it impossible for them to be returned to the descendants of the original communities. Not to mention the scientific gaps that this creates.

With this study, the MUMASK has made the choice of transparency and joins the few European museums that have undertaken analyses of turquoise mosaic objects, enabling fruitful comparisons and enriching our overall knowledge of Mixtec cultural practices.

Financial support by the Access to Research Infrastructures activity in the Horizon 2020 Programme of the EU (IPERION HS Grant Agreement n.871034) is gratefully acknowledged