Architect David Adjaye has been selected to design a new museum in Nigeria that may one day hold cultural and artistic works that were previously looted from the region by colonial powers. 

Adjaye Associates, who helped design the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., has been commissioned to undertake a feasibility study with local partner Agram Architects for the new Benin Royal Museum in Nigeria, Art News writes. 

Adjaye currently consults for the Benin Dialogue Group, a cultural repatriation-focused entity that includes representatives from major European and Nigerian museums. During the colonial era, many of West Africa’s most precious art and cultural objects were stolen by colonizing powers, and as a result, now sit scattered across the world’s museums, including the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, according to Art News. 

The Benin Dialogue Group is working to coordinate the tricky task of repatriating some of those objects. Due to the complicated legal nature regarding the ownership of these objects, however, it is unclear if the works will actually be repatriated back to their rightful host countries or if they will in fact be loaned from European institutions.