Art as Reparation

Pressing Matter, Distribution of the Sensible, and the Decolonial Aesthetics of the Global South

Abstract

This article reflects on the project Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums, in dialogue with the concept of decolonial aesthetics as proposed by authors such as Walter Mignolo and Pedro Pablo Gomez. Based on an analysis of initiatives promoted by the project—such as artist residencies involving participants from the Global South—and on theoretical discussions about the distribution of the sensible (Rancière), it argues that Pressing Matter functions as a platform for the critical deconstruction of colonial museological regimes. The practices of artists examined—among them Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, Pansee Atta, Lifepatch, Aram Lee, Zoé Samudzi, Zara Julius, Hande Sever, and Gelare Khoshgozaran—articulate sensorial experiences, situated epistemologies, and alternative modes of symbolic and material restitution. These practices challenge dominant categories such as value, property, and heritage, and propose new forms of aesthetic and political mediation between colonial objects and their communities of origin. The article suggests that these works not only critique Eurocentric aesthetic frameworks but also actively perform ontological and epistemic displacements that unsettle hegemonic ways of seeing, feeling, and knowing, thus constituting living instances of decolonial aesthetics in action.