Three years after being committed to MONDIACULT 2022, UNESCO is initiating a new project: the Virtual Museum of Stolen Cultural Objects. The global online platform employs a highly developed digital technology to draw attention to the illegal trade of cultural property, which is one of the most prevalent challenges to cultural heritage in the world. The launch will occur at the World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development – MONDIACULT 2025, on Monday, 29 September in Barcelona, Spain.
The launch event of the “UNESCO Virtual Museum of Stolen Cultural Objects” will mark the public launch of the platform and provide participants with an interactive experience of the Virtual Museum. Before the Director-General of UNESCO, and welcomed by the Museum’s architect, Francis Kéré, the platform will be unveiled officially with a guided tour of its spaces and facilities. Visitors will be able to experience the Virtual Museum with their own devices directly or with special screens and virtual reality headsets erected, as the platform will be accessible to everyone across the globe as visitors will have the opportunity to visit the Virtual Museum.
Disclosing the Virtual Museum design, interactive materials, digitised artefacts, and learning materials, the event will allow the participants to get to know about the potential of the Virtual Museum to spread awareness and mobilize global audiences. Leveraging new technologies such as 3D modelling and virtual reality, the UNESCO Virtual Museum virtually reconstructs and displays stolen cultural objects chosen by Member States.
The new platform also provides educational stories and witness statements from victim communities to shed light on the cultural and historical importance of the objects. A special room to showcase cases of successful restitutions will also demonstrate the significance of good practices and global cooperation on the issue of return and restitution work.
The UNESCO Virtual Museum of Stolen Cultural Objects, which was launched by the UNESCO Director-General at MONDIACULT 2022, was formed as a result of an appeal by the Member States to have an action plan aimed at raising increased awareness about illicit trafficking. The first-ever global initiative of its nature, the project, conceived by Pritzker Prize laureate Francis Kéré, is funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and implemented in collaboration with INTERPOL.
With its launch at MONDIACULT 2025, the initiative signals the creation of an international platform that joins forces involving innovation, education, global cooperation, and social participation in safeguarding the world’s shared heritage and combating looting and illicit trafficking of cultural goods.
