Geographies of Extraction: Loss, Power, and Cultural Rematriation

All PEN World Voices Festival tickets are non-refundable. Please confirm the time and location of your event before finalizing your purchase.

It was on a tour of the British Museum years ago that Mohegan theater artist Madeline Sayet (Where We Belong) discovered a collection of Native American skulls—objects the museum classified as artifacts, but which she understood as ancestors, alive with the yearning to return home. In Gabriela Wiener’s irreverently witty novel, Undiscovered (tr. Julia Sanches), the Peruvian writer is confronted by her complicated family colonial heritage in a museum in Paris when she discovers the man responsible for pillaging these pre-Columbian artifacts was her own great-great-grandfather. In Who Owns Beauty? (tr. Andrew Brown), French art historian Bénédicte Savoy, whose work has fundamentally reshaped debates on provenance, museums, and cultural restitution, asks us to examine how great works of art collected in Western museums came to be there.

In a conversation moderated by Executive Director of Artists at Risk Connection, Julie Trébault, these writers ask: what do the journeys of human remains, cultural artifacts, and iconic artworks reveal about our history? What makes the violence and asymmetries that have shaped their extraction, preservation, and return both collective and deeply personal experiences?

The 2026 PEN World Voices Festival is a celebration of world literature and free expression. The 2026 edition will be the 21st World Voices Festival. Over four days, over 140 writers from over 40 countries will be featured in engaging talks, panels, readings, and activations in New York City and greater Los Angeles.

This space is ADA compliant. An elevator is onsite that goes to the event space.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our Box Office team at [email protected] by April 15th to request.

Please ask a Box Office Attendant or festival representative upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact [email protected]

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

AIA New York | Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place, New York, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

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