412 historic artefacts to return home to Sarawak, Malaysia

On 22 November 2017, at Museum Prinsenhof in Delft, the Netherlands, Sarawak's Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports, Datuk Haji Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, received the first of 412 historic objects donated by the City of Delft to the Sarawak Museum. The collection is destined for the exhibition galleries of the new Sarawak Museum Campus.

A Sarawak delegation travelled to Delft to thank the city. The handover was performed by Deputy Mayor Ferrie Forster and Janelle Moerman, Director of Heritage Delft, to the Minister and to Ipoi Datan, director of the Sarawak Museum.

In his remarks the Minister said the donation of the Bornean ethnographic material complemented the museum's existing holdings and supported its ambition to become a global centre for Bornean heritage by 2030, adding that the Sarawak government is keen to see objects originating from Borneo returned. He acknowledged the part played by Hans van de Bunte, Senior Project Director of the Sarawak Museum Campus.

The artefacts came from Museum Nusantara in Delft, which closed to the public in 2013. The city government and Heritage Delft then worked to find new custodians for its collection, and the Sarawak Museum — an ASEMUS member — was identified as the appropriate home for the Bornean material. A selection was shown at the Textile Museum in Kuching after the objects arrived in Sarawak in early 2018, accompanied by a special edition of the museum's collection booklets. The Minister thanked the Dutch Embassy in Malaysia for supporting both.

The Sarawak Museum Campus is a state-funded project to rebuild the museum's international standing. Its aims include a new main building for Sarawak's cultural and historical heritage, an internationally recognised Sarawak Heritage Conservation Centre with laboratories, storage, research offices, library and archive, conservation of the historic museum building in its early twentieth-century form, expanded education and outreach work, and stronger cultural tourism to Kuching and Sarawak. The permanent galleries cover 6,000 square metres, with the exhibition narrative built on academic research into the collections.