It's TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hu.

Jim Choochoo is a Kenyan filmmaker and cultural innovator.

He's also a sleuth.

He's on a global hunt for missing objects from his native country.

The objects and texts, some of them sacred, hold a treasure trove of Kenya's cultural heritage,

but after years of colonization, often got removed from Africa. In his talk recorded for Ted Monterey

in 2021, he underlines why bringing back culturally meaningful objects is so important.

If you live in New York or London or some other so-called cultural capital, it's likely

that you visited an art museum that features a collection of African art.

These collections usually consist of masks and sculptures, but also include weapons and ceremonial

dress, cutlery, jewelry,

and even toys. These objects are markers of traditions and cultural beliefs, but also of

adaptation and ingenuity, science, and spirituality. Cultural objects are the way that human beings

say we were here. Have you ever wondered how these African objects are the way that human beings say we were here.

Have you ever wondered how these African objects ended up in museums?

Some were bought by traders and tourists, some were gifts exchanged in acts of friendship,

and some were excavated in archaeological digs.

But then there are many others that were looted during raids,

confiscated by colonial forces and stolen at gunpoint.

I'm an artist, and I tell stories for a living.

To tell stories, you need imagination and memory.

And in Kenya, we have a gap in our memory. So much of what happened in between the late 1800s until our independence in 1963 is missing because too many

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