The exhibition is based on a collection of objects and a photographic archive from the territory of the former German and later British colony of Tanganyika, present-day Tanzania. The exhibited objects are part of the legacy of Antonija Grom and her son Stanko.

Antonija Grom from Vrhnika left for Africa in 1930 due to her employment and stayed in Tanganyika for ten years. In 1937, she was joined by her son Stanko, who remained in Tanganyika until 1962. Both were employed by a Swiss company on a sisal plantation, where sisal was cultivated for rope manufacturing. In 1948, Stanko Grom moved to the town of Mpanda, where he worked as the head of the timber department at a lead mine. In 1956, he relocated to the Chunya District in southwestern Tanganyika and worked in the construction sector. Due to the political changes in Tanganyika at the time, he returned home to Vrhnika in 1962. He brought back more than 4,000 items of his extensive photographic material from his work locations, giving the collection a significant documentary value. In addition to the objects he collected in the field, the collection includes his personal belongings from his time in Tanzania. The Slovene Ethnographic Museum (SEM) acquired Stanko Grom's entire collection in 2025.

For a deeper understanding of the context and significance of the collection, SEM partnered with Tanzanian curator and artist Eliabu Mbonimpa from the Iringa Boma Regional Museum and Cultural Centre. Together with the co-author of the exhibition, Dr. Tina Palaić, a curator at SEM, they designed a collaborative research project on Grom collection back in 2024. They were particularly interested in shedding light on the colonial traces of the German and British empires in Tanzania, preserved in Slovenia through the Grom family legacy. In Tanzania, Eliabu Mbonimpa visited key locations of Grom's work and gathered testimonies from locals regarding colonial exploitation at the Kizengi sisal plantation and the Mpanda lead mine. His fieldwork contributed significantly to a contemporary perspective on the collection.

In addition to the objects and photographic material from the Grom family legacy, the exhibition features a short film titled In the Footsteps of Stanko Grom and Tanzanian Heritage, filmed by Eliabu Mbonimpa during his research in Tanzania and at SEM. The film is complemented by Stanko Grom's archival photographs. A section of the exhibition is dedicated to the author's reflection on modern Tanzania. Through his drawings, he critically addresses the colonial past and its consequences, while also highlighting how the younger Tanzanian generation is caught between heritage and the challenges of modern society.

By integrating contemporary perspectives from Tanzania and fostering institutional partnerships, the Slovene Ethnographic Museum brings forth new insights. Stanko Grom's collection is presented not merely as a historical document, but as an important crossroads of memory and the decolonization of knowledge.

The exhibition was created as part of the project Tracing Colonialism: The Tanzanian Collection in Slovenia. It was led by SEM curator Dr. Tina Palaić, who also developed the exhibition concept. Based on his fieldwork, Eliabu Mbonimpa contributed the exhibition texts and video, while Dr. Marko Frelih, the custodian of the Tanzanian collection at SEM, shed light on its origins and its journey to the museum. The visual identity and graphic design were created by Melissa Cerić.
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The project Tracing Colonialism: The Tanzanian Collection in Slovenia is implemented by SEM within the framework of TheMuseumsLab CollabFund initiative, funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) and the Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media).