🐓The Iyoba Rooster protects —
no matter where we stand today.
From palace to street.
From altar to body.
From Benin City to wherever we are.
#IyobaRooster #Okporhu #ProtectedEverywhere #BeninKingdom #AfroKrypto
British Museum in Benin Bronzes row over African kingdoms ‘benefiting from slavery’
“The metal [used to make the bronzes] mostly comes from European slave traders, in exchange for our ancestors the Benin kingdom stole and sold into transatlantic chattel slavery.
“They have unclean hands and cannot claim legal or moral ownership greater than the descendants of the people who paid for these relics with their lives.
Article in bio
The Restitution Study Group is proud to announce the second UK cohort of the Benin Kingdom Museum Bronze-Making Fellowship.
Building on work launched in New York and the UK in January 2025, this fellowship helps Afrodescendants reconnect with the history, artistry, and hidden human cost of the Benin bronzes.
Fellows will study original Benin bronzes in UK museums, learn 3D scanning and bronze-making processes, and create new works inspired by that engagement.
We are grateful to the UK selection teams — Maangamizi Educational Trust, led by Esther Xosei, and Decolonising the Archive, led by Connie Bell — for helping identify fellows connected to reparatory justice, historical truth, cultural preservation, and Afrodescendant empowerment.
Each fellow’s work will become part of the permanent collection of the Benin Kingdom Museum.
@mzxosei@de_archive
Our 2nd cohort of the Benin Bronze-Making Fellowship begins today! January 17, 2026.
The Restitution Study Group (RSG) and Afrodescendant Trust Fund announce the launch of the Second Cohort of their Benin Bronze-Making Fellowship, an artist-training program cultivating a new generation of cultural artists producing Benin bronze replicas and original works for the forthcoming Benin Kingdom Museum in Harlem, New York. Classes will take place in New York City over MLK Weekend 2026.
The Fellowship is grounded in the historical truth that the original Benin bronzes were forged with metal sourced from manilla currency exchanged for African captives sold into transatlantic enslavement. In an effort to democratize access to these cultural relics, Fellows are trained to recreate and reimagine the works while advancing a vision of joint stewardship of the original bronzes, which descendants understand as objects embedded with the presence and memory of their ancestors.
The 2026 Fellows are (in alphabetical order):
Zainab Aliyu (Nigerian-American, Yoruba/Edo) – Artist, designer and cultural worker
Dana-Marie Bullock (Jamaican) – Pratt Institute alumna, interdisciplinary artist, painting, sculpture, and performance
Julian Frost (African American/Jamaican) – Creative technologist, tinkerer, and learner
Kalindah Laveaux (African American, Louisiana) – Voodoo Queen/Priestess, multidisciplinary performing artist, historian
Kim Poole (African American, Maryland) – Multidisciplinary performing/teaching artist, storyteller, UN Advocate
Rylee “Ry” Erin Watkins (African American, Tennessee) – Pratt Institute student, multi-disciplinary artist, sculptor
Bronze foundry instruction will be led by Blake Hiltunen, Foundry Instructor and Associate Professor of Foundry at Pratt Institute and the Rhode Island School of Design. In addition to serving as a Fellow, Julian Frost will teach 3D printing and manufacturing.
Learn more:
Happy New Year! “Should old acquaintance be forgot?” Auld Lang Syne asks the question.
AfroKrypto answers: Never.
We remember our ancestors.
We remember our stories.
We remember our brilliance.
And we build tools to carry their legacy into tomorrow.
✨ For auld lang syne. For AfroKrypto.
I was wearing the AfroKrypto lapel pin last night — a small way of carrying our legacy forward.
If you’d like one, inbox me and I’ll send you the link.
#AfroKrypto #ClaimTheLegacy
#LimitedEditionMerchNFTsAndPerks #restitutionstudygroup
The world’s longest-running ethnocides are still happening today. For 500+ years, Indigenous peoples of the Americas (since 1492) and Africans enslaved through the transatlantic trade (since 1501) have faced erasure of language, culture, land, and identity. Their descendants are still denied justice. #Ethnocide #Reparations @restitutionstudygroup
![British Museum in Benin Bronzes row over African kingdoms ‘benefiting from slavery’“The metal [used to make the bronzes] mostly comes from European slave traders, in exchange for our ancestors the Benin kingdom stole and sold into transatlantic chattel slavery.“They have unclean hands and cannot claim legal or moral ownership greater than the descendants of the people who paid for these relics with their lives.Article in bio](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6855615229486962153630_0_355a5383f0df3d00dc2ed3513a81f8e5.jpg?o=aHR0cHM6Ly9zY29udGVudC1ob3UxLTEuY2RuaW5zdGFncmFtLmNvbS92L3Q1MS43MTg3OC0xNS81MDQxMTQ3NTZfNzA3ODI1MTY1MzIyMzI3XzU4NzY4NDI3OTk2NDgwODQwODFfbi5qcGc/c3RwPWMxMDEuMC4yNjUuMjY1YV9kc3QtanBnX2UxNV90dDYmX25jX2h0PXNjb250ZW50LWhvdTEtMS5jZG5pbnN0YWdyYW0uY29tJl9uY19jYXQ9MTAzJl9uY19vYz1RNmNaMmdGeWNjSWp0Q3ZjWGFlcEViR2M3QXlqMjN2SmU4WTRhdm5tTUZkc2N2VHlEZFM2VlMxRkZmTE8xZjJtV3NQR0M1S2Rid1BHalpfbVN3TUR2OWJPZFVZSiZfbmNfb2hjPXlYa2N0OGstNmZzUTdrTnZ3RnpFRkpjJl9uY19naWQ9UnkyY0lFWlVQRHdiamFSQ0dVdWlNZyZlZG09QVBVODlGQUJBQUFBJmNjYj03LTUmb2g9MDBfQWY1aFM4TTUzMU43Q1U4RXdET0ZpS1dWaGRrOXhoYnpJcmhZa213OGs3Qm50ZyZvZT02QTBFQjA5MyZfbmNfc2lkPWJjMGMyYw==&h=48e27a438206d2a7b075ae14ad88a1c5)
