What does it mean to reckon with historic harm, personally and systemically, and can repair ever really be free of contradiction?

During my study abroad in Europe, I noticed ongoing efforts by museums to return cultural artifacts, a process known as "restitution." The debates about it often centered around whether institutions were genuinely grappling with accountability or simply performing morality, which made me curious how restitution might look on a personal scale, like within a friendship. In creating this project, I drew from artists and scholars such as Edouard Glissant and Ousmane Sembene, scholarship around restitution and decolonial theory, and African philosophies of cyclical time.

When you read this story, I want you to consider:

What does it take to truly see ourselves? Each other? History? How can we break cycles of harm and imagine new ways of seeing?

✦Click here to read the full comic✦

I initially intended for this comic to be analog, so many pages began on paper using colored pencils and alcohol markers. When this process proved to be more time-consuming than expected, I transitioned to digital.