The Women’s History Museum of Zambia is a feminist and decolonial museum initiative practicing rematriation as way of restoring, documenting, and activating women-led indigenous knowledge systems, material culture, and historical narratives in Zambia. Founded in response to the exclusion of women from dominant archival and museum canons, the museum works across research, exhibitions, digital storytelling, workshops, and public pedagogy to build more equitable and community-grounded cultural infrastructures.
Its work spans oral history, archival activation, textile and material culture research, digital interventions, and collaborative programming with artists, knowledge keepers, researchers, and institutions in Zambia and internationally. Through projects such as digital exhibitions, community learning labs, collection-based interpretation, and women-centred publishing and storytelling, the museum rethinks the archive as a living, usable resource rather than a static repository.
The museum’s broader mission is to contribute to epistemic repair by reconnecting communities to histories and knowledge systems that were disrupted through colonialism, patriarchy, and extractive museum practice. It is committed to shaping new models of museum practice from the African continent that centre memory, care, co-authorship, and public value.