Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts Research, is Professor of Global African Art and Visual Culture at the University of California Santa Barbara. Contemporary artist Victor Ehikhamenor has garnered worldwide attention for his large-scale installations that deploy Catholic rosaries to create monumental portraits of Benin monarchs, evoking the kingdom’s historic encounters with Europe while addressing contemporary debates around the restitution of African art. These works draw from his Nigerian heritage and are rich in both material and symbolic significance. They position Benin’s visual traditions in direct dialogue with the iconography of European imperial power, thus staging a confrontation between the visual languages and belief systems of two imperial orders. Ehikhamenor’s artworks invites critical reflection on the intersections of sacred and secular imagery, the politics of display, and the role of contemporary African artists in reimagining colonial archives and global Black identity. This talk examines how his practice reactivates historical memory and engages with the shifting discourse on cultural patrimony restitution.