two protesters are arrested as they attempt to dirupt the epsom derby. now, let's see the bbc news travel programme. this week on the travel show... i'm in belgium, where past, present and future meet. we commissioned contemporary artists to present their alternative interpretation. we delve into a depot of treasures. my goodness. look at this place. what an incredible space. yeah, it's an open storage. and the discussion around stolen artefacts continues. all of us are standing together

and demanding that these bronzes stay where they are so we can have access to these. hello and welcome to the travel show with me, rajan datar. now, it's widely believed that the first ever museum was built more than 2,500 years ago in babylon, or modern day iraq. and now unesco reckons there are 100,000 of them throughout the world. but today, many museums are putting a lot of time and effort into thinking about how they can make their collections more engaging and more in tune with modern audiences.

and that is what we're looking at in this week's show, starting here in belgium. the african museum just outside of brussels is marking its 125th anniversary. and along with a range of events associated with that, the museum has taken the opportunity to reflect on its colonial past. five years ago, the museum underwent a massive renovation, removing problematic statues, changing the labelling around objects. anything that created a negative stereotype about africa. though some things couldn't be changed, like the enduring presence of the monarch who established this place. so here this hall represents really the two discourses that are taking place in the museum. and you can see if you lift your head the name of the late king leopold ii encrypted in everyone�*s hall.

but also here you actually have an inscription that says in french. belgium brought civilisation to congo. exactly. it's a very problematic one. how come these are still here? that plaque and that statue. that's a question that every visitors ask us. it's because the building is protected, it's part of the flanders cultural heritage. so we cannot touch anything from the walls of the building. so what we did is that we commissioned contemporary artists to present their alternative interpretation. so when the museum building says belgium brings security, he has the image of a belgian soldiers that brings security all with eyes in his back. and it's notjust the text, it's as obvious as the colour of the statues. so here we have another inscription that says "the wrestle with the snake." you do notice that the statue

is black and the others are gold, because gold is seen as superior, as godly. and this is for someone who is inferior. the museum traces its origins back to when king leopold, the second, set up the international exposition of 1897. as part of that, 267 congolese men, women and children were taken by force to belgium and exhibited to the public in fenced fake villages right here on this side. when belgium gained independence from the netherlands in the 19th century, the western nations scramble for africa was in full throttle. now, king leopold wanted a piece of the action, but without the support of his own government, he had to win over investors and the public. the exposition was a huge success, and so began belgium's long and violent history in the congo. when i arrived here in 2001 as director, i found a museum

that basically had not changed since 1956. basically the year when i first visited the museum as a child it was still a colonial museum doing colonial propaganda in all sense of the world, so full of stereotypes that the congolese were basically violent with spears and with a very aggressive face. do you think your generation i mean, not necessarily you, but didn't your generation carries some guilt in a way for letting this perpetuate, for letting this keep going? this old imagery, this old view of africa. guilt. you know, it was all part of the system. when i was at school as a young kid, you know, at primary and secondary school, most of our teachers were former missionaries. and they told about the good things that they did and that they were getting. so they basically told us the story. wherever we came,

it was basically the story of white people bringing civilisation to congo. and it's not until i basically got to university and started working in africa that that suddenly i saw a whole new reality. how much do you think museums like this are responsible for diffusing racism throughout, for example, belgium? i mean, we realised that most belgian children had their first encounter with africa through a visit of this museum, either when they came with the school or with their parents or with their grandparents. and so for a hundred years, that impression was basically one of stereotypes and that africa was good for the provide the nature, but we were superior in providing the culture. and from stereotypes, you have prejudgments and from prejudgments, you have a certain amount of racism. but so now, last 20 years, the museum has been very working, very hard to restoring, to reparation things. when guido started, 95% of belgians thought that colonisation was a good thing. in 2022, the survey was done again

and the number dropped to 35%. that's in part due to these changes within the museum and also events such as these. tell me what this room is about. i mean, these are some quite provocative statements here. yeah, it is. this room is about talking about racism here in the museum as a colonial institution. in the wall, we have different phrases that you've already heard or said, which represents three sorts of racism. institutional racism, ordinary racism and internalised racism. you must be thinking, questioning the whole purpose of this museum? so, yeah, because i have african origins, the way i entered in this space was because the museum needed someone to make a link with the african diaspora. because here the collections are so enormous that you can also learn about your history here. but don't make the mistake

of thinking that it's african history. it's the way europeans saw africans. no stone has been left unturned as part of the reimaging. even the african museum quest game has been reworded, they say, to better fit the museum's ethos moving forward. each of the symbols and the envelopes matches something that's an artefact in the museum. now, this is the first one you've got to start with, but for the life of me, i can't find it anywhere, which is a good start. i think i might have found this one. so i've got to the end now. i've got to assemble these pieces in the right way, which then matches one of these envelopes. open the envelope and i'll find out whether i'm succeeded or failed. to be absolutely honest with you, it's been a greatjourney around the museum itself, but this is fiendishly difficult.

i'm going to guess. oh, dear, ifailed. still, do you know what? really good fun doing this chore? anyway, most days the museum hosts visiting school groups and part of that involves visiting the depot to see what's been removed from the permanent exhibition and to understand why, how much you learn at school, how much you know before you came here? basically nothing. i think it's the first time we really learn about it. we learned some things about africa in history, but not very much. - so it's very interesting to learn all about it. . i wouldn't do it if i was queen of belgium. but there are also some lighter aspects to a trip here. i managed to get a little taster in the central and west african music workshop. the museum cannot change the past,

but through workshops like this and open discussions, it seems committed to help build a better future. very good. thank you. now, the museum here in belgium isn't the only one looking at ways to be more engaging and to challenge ideas of what a traditional museum should be like. so here are some more examples of museums around the world aiming to shake things up a bit. explore a world without plastic, all from the comfort of your own home. the museum of plastic 2121 is a virtual exhibition aiming to illustrate why we need to tackle waste and clean up our oceans. you can download it for free onto your phone, desktop or vr headset. over in amsterdam, there's the world's first ever museum dedicated to microbes. you can even take a scan to learn about the microbes that live

in your body and try the interactive case ometer to find out how much bacteria is transferred when you kiss someone. for a little adventure, head into the provence mountains in france, where set in an old quarry you'll this museum. currently, you can enjoy exhibitions on tintin and van gogh. this spanish museum in madrid throws the do not touch signs out of the window. the whole concept is that visitors explore everything using just their hands. also, there's a strong emphasis on art made by blind people. finally, in tokyo, you can walk through water and become one with the flowers. visitors are invited to immerse their entire bodies in the vast artworks which change under the presence of people, blurring the perception of boundaries between the self and the works. still to come on the travel show... taking transparency to a whole new level. and should they stay

or should they go? the discussion around these continues. so don't go away. right now, we're heading just next door to the netherlands, to the dutch city of rotterdam, was just happens to be europe's largest seaport, but it's also gaining reputation for adopting a radical new approach to looking at art in museums, as christa found out last year when she went there. the depot boijmans van beuningen, it's the world's first publicly accessible art storage facility. and from the outside, it looks a bit like a giant space age teacup. so i wonder what the insides are going to look like. after flooding forced the museum to move the collection out of its usual storage facility, the team rethought the entire concept of an archive.

gone was the idea of a warehouse with a security guard and a dog. replaced by a concept based on radical transparency. my goodness. look at this place. what an incredible space. yeah. you like it? it's an open storage. museums to have a collection that you show maybe just 3% to 6 to 7%. but that feels awkward because many things sink into oblivion or do not get the care that is necessary. so we opened our vaults with all the art collections to the audience, and we show how we work with the collection to clean paintings, to restore things that are not in a good shape. it's the audience who is the owner, and we are the very proud caretakers. the access visitors have is remarkable. you can even request to see certain individual pieces of your choice. i found a group with their guide,

and you have to have a guide when you come here. because i guess i can'tjust let people loose among these racks of possibly priceless works. what's the only real limiting factor here is time. because the environments are so strictly controlled, visitors are only allowed in certain rooms for a limited period. even a small group can alter these delicately balanced conditions. this is very much a working building where you get to see the inside story of a museum. the depot isn't the only place reinventing its archives. the world's most visited museum, the louvre in paris, has just relocated its vaults to a huge high tech campus in northern france. it's only open to academics, but claims to now be one of the biggest study and research centres in europe. meanwhile, london's v&a museum plans to open storehouse on the olympic park in 2024, putting hundreds of thousands of items on display for the first

time in generations. one of the biggestjoys of all this open access is the direct contact with the people whose job it is to look after the exhibits. it's made reuben here, a man very much in demand. sorry to interrupt. can i ask what you're doing? what you're looking for? a visitor asks us online if the frame is original or not. and is it? i don't think it is. if you look closely, you see that it's white and not brown. if it would be an original, it would have been an oak frame. so the ornaments would be carved out of the out of the wood and not moulded. exactly. so anyone can just send you an email and ask a question about a piece? exactly. the whole collection is visible online and there is a button. and so you canjust click on it and you can ask any question and it goes into my mailbox. well, i have a question i'll ask you directly. sure. so when you have members

of the public coming through here, was it distracting? what do you do? in the beginning, it was a little bit distracting. but i'm just supposed to continue myjob and just do whatever i'm doing. do you get more questions from people? yeah. and yeah, yeah, yeah. and they're like, very, like, prying eyes. it's a fun part of the job. yeah. just while i've been here, i think i've probably seen a dozen artworks i've never seen before. that utterly captivated me. they're incredible. what an amazing way to see to see art so different. well, i think it would take me days to see everything, but what an intriguing concept. thank you. well, another big trend that's happening with museums, particularly here in the west, is asking whether certain exhibits should even be in their collections or whether they should be returned back home. just last summer, king felipe of belgium returned a rare mask to the democratic republic of congo,

which had actually been on display in this museum for the last 70 years. you may have seen these items in a museum or heard about the benin bronzes in the media. in the past year, dozens of museums across the west have either agreed to or are in the process of returning them back to nigeria. it's estimated around 10,000 pieces were taken by the british during a punitive expedition to benin in 1897. the bronzes were then sold to institutions around the world. now there's no law in the uk which forces museums or other places to return stolen artefacts, but some institutions are doing it independently. like jesus college cambridge. they were the first institution in the world to return a benin

bronze in 2021 and soon cambridge university's museum of archaeology and anthropology will follow suit. we've identified 116 objects that were taken during the punitive expedition of 1897, and those are the objects that we will be transferring ownership of. i think it's impossible to overstate just how severe an act of vandalism and cultural violence this was. the heads that we see before us here, where several of the objects that graced ancestral altars throughout the palace and the purpose of those altars was very much to maintain the lineage, to maintain the kingdom, the plaques that were been removed from the walls throughout the city where visualisations of the benin kingdom's history and heritage. and those were all taken away in a wholesale export of this material, leaving very,

very little behind. tell me, why are you now and only now returning some of the pieces? i think it's the right time for these collections to go back. one might say it's long overdue. i think the main reason, the most recent reason, is that there has been a request from the nigerian government and we want the future retelling and care of these collections to be something that's really, really collaborative. however, history can be complicated, and there is one group led by the descendants of those who were enslaved, calling for the bronzes to remain where they are. well, the kingdom actually engaged in selling enslaved people. the 16th and 19th century bronzes were made with a manila. this was a currency for the transatlantic slave trade. they actually melted these manilas down

and cast them into the bronzes. so these bronzes are actually legacy wealth, or cultural property, not only of the people of the kingdom of benin, but of all of the people that they played a role in enslaving and the transatlantic slave trade. and i am one of those dna descendants. and all of us are standing together and demanding that these bronzes stay where they are so we can have access to them. tell me, what proof do you have that there is this connection? we prefer to refer directly to the literature prepared by the kingdom of benin. so we have this amazing book, the benin monarchy, produced by the current 0ba of the kingdom of benin. and it actually spells out specifically that they use these manilas and why they needed to get the manilas at a certain point. 50 manilas but a female, 57 bought a male.

currently they have 57 active appeals in place with a further 50 in the works to institutions around the world to keep hold of their bronzes. although they don't have to be concerned about this place. the british museum currently holds the largest collection of bronzes in the world, with no plans to return any. in a statement sent to the travel show, they say that the collections offer an important opportunity for audiences to understand the history of the british conquest of benin city and to reflect on the impact of that period of colonialism. undoubtedly these points of view don't sit too well back in nigeria. the whole world knows they are stolen properties. there is no place like home. by the time this object comes home, it's going to do a lot of things. it will heal the wounds.

it will create more jobs for our people. tourists to visit our museums. and as for the diasporas' claims, marc thinks they should come back to nigeria too, with the bronzes. meanwhile, plans are under way to build the edo museum of west african art. it's scheduled to open in 2026 and that, they hope, will be filled with all the returned bronzes. right, well, that's it from us on the travel show for this week. butjoin us next time when... ..lucy is in northern sweden at a revolutionary electric flying school that's hoping to kick start fossil free aviation. there we go. that's right.

and don't forget, you can find us on social media in all the usual places, along with some other great travel content from around the bbc. but for now, from me and the rest of the travel show team here in belgium, it's goodbye. hello there. good afternoon. for the vast majority of us, it's a beautiful day of weather with plenty of blue sky and sunshine around, such as here in denbighshire in wales. the photo sent in by our weather watcher and it's also brightened up across east anglia, where it's been cloudy and really quite cool for much of the week. this is beautiful. this in norfolk. now it's all set to continue

as we head through the rest of next week, too. the outlook is looking dry and settled. a lot more sunshine to come in the forecast, high pressure dominating the satellite picture. a thing of beauty from today with some still some cloud across northern areas of scotland, maybe some fair weather cloud bubbling up across the higher ground as we head through the afternoon here. and then we've still got that brisk northeasterly wind towards east anglian coast and towards the kent coast, gusts of wind of around 30 miles an hour. so it's cooler and breezier here, but temperatures for most of us will peak in the low twenties in celsius. now, don't forget that the sunshine is strong at this time of year. the uv levels are high, the grass pollen levels are also high for today and will remain high as we head through tomorrow and next week. tonight, it's not quite as chilly as it was last night. lots of clear skies around again. we've got those areas of cloud just drifting in from north sea coast. so quite a murky start to the day tomorrow. any early mist by the west will lift and clear and it's a milder start. temperatures in mid to high single figures for most of us.

now that cloud will gradually retreat further eastwards as we head throughout the day towards the lincolnshire coastal some cloud across eastern areas of scotland perhaps for a time. again, some more fairweather cloud bubbling up through the afternoon and the small chance of one or two showers breaking out across northern ireland and south west scotland. but here still temperatures peaking in the late twenties and celsius. and it's much of a muchness on monday. the same thing all over again. rinse and repeat, some more cloud edging into eastern coastal areas, gradually burning back towards the case. the best of the sunshine further west again, temperatures ranging from the high teens to the low twenties in celsius. now, as we head through next week, the high pressure is going nowhere, gradually drifts eastwards, just roaring in more of a southeasterly wind. so we could find that towards the south east of england, temperatures start to climb, as we head through the middle and the end of next week. here's the outlook for our capital cities. possibly one or two showers in the southwest.

live from london. this is bbc news. india's prime minister nahendra modi has visited the site of a major train crash in the country's eastern state of 0disha. 288 people are now known to have died — and a thousand injured — in the worst rail disaster since independence. turkish president recep erdogan has been sworn in for a third time following a run off vote criticised by opposition groups. police arrest 21 people on suspicion of �*conspiracy to commit public nuisance�* over allegations they planned to disrupt the epsom derby.

hello, i'm anjana gadgil.