New Fellows 2026!
New York, NY — The Restitution Study Group (RSG), a New York-based 501(c)(3) slavery reparatory justice institute, is proud to announce the launch of the Benin Kingdom Museum Bronze Making Fellowship Program—a groundbreaking initiative to preserve and educate about the artistry and historical legacy of Benin Kingdom bronze making, rooted in the transatlantic slave trade. Five Afrodescendants (descendants of enslaved Africans) have been selected for the inaugural cohort of fellows to receive expert instruction from Foundry Specialist Professor Blake Hiltunen (Pratt Institute). The program combines traditional craftsmanship with a powerful cultural narrative, bridging continents and histories.
Our 2nd round of fellows (Alphabetically)
Zainab “Zai” Aliyu is a Nigerian-American artist, designer and cultural worker whose work explores the cybernetic and temporal entanglements within societal dynamics to understand how all sociotechnological systems of control are interconnected, and how we are all materially implicated through time. She draws upon her body as a corporeal archive and site of ancestral memory to craft counter-narratives through sculptures, videos, installations, virtual environments, publications, archives, and social practice.
Dana-Marie Bullock is a Jamaican-born interdisciplinary artist based in New York City. Her work encompasses painting, sculpture, and performance - drawing from self-portraiture and familial memory in tandem with abstraction, Bullock engages with themes of gender, trauma, loss and Jamaican mythology.
Julian Frost is a passionate creative technologist, tinkerer, and learner. Julian is committed to fostering innovation in communities and the pursuit of empowering the next generation of tech leaders.
(3D Print and Scan Instuctor and fellow)
Voodoo Queen Kalindah Laveaux is a priestess, multidisciplinary artist, historian, and culture bearer. She composes traditional music, dances, rituals, and sacred shrines in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Kim Poole is a multidisciplinary performing artist and storyteller whose work examines African diasporic history, material culture, and embodied knowledge within contemporary cultural and educational contexts. She is the Chief Visionary of the Teaching Artist Institute, where her curatorial practice informs immersive, Pan-African learning initiatives focused on community-based cultural interpretation and public engagement.
Ry Watkins (b.2001) is a multi-disciplinary artist from Tennessee working in immersive
installation and sculpture to tell and retell narratives surrounding the Black experience in the
American South. They utilize the archive, lived memory, and the circulating forms of
contemporary digital Black culture as source materials in their work.
Blake Hiltunen (Bronze Making Class instructor)
Six fellows will participate in hands-on classes at a studio in Brooklyn, New York, while one fellow will work independently from London, where he is developing a related performance art piece. Over the course of the program, fellows will create individual Benin bronze-inspired works and collaborate on a replica Benin bronze head. The works will join the permanent collection of the planned Benin Kingdom Museum in Harlem—the first in a global franchise for cultural education and sustainable development.
The program was made possible by a reparations payment from the heir of an enslaver who built wealth on the backs of kidnapped and trafficked African people. Esther Xosei, the RSG UK mobilizer who helped negotiate the agreement, said:
The works created in the fellowship program will tour globally in Benin Kingdom Museum pop-up exhibits, including performance art and video installations. The tour will also feature the Cannes 2023 Cellphone Cinema Showcase Award-winning documentary:
They Belong to All of Us — The Benin Bronze Slave Trade Story: https://videopress.com/v/TXOq2GdB
To book an interview or pop-up exhibit, or to make a tax-deductible donation to support the work of the RSG, contact:
Deadria Farmer-Paellmann
Executive Director
Restitution Study Group
Email: rsgincorp1@gmail.com
Phone: 917-365-3007
The Benin Kingdom Museum is a project of the Afrodescendant Trust Fund: www.theADTF.com