I’m on a train of thought and I need fellow passengers
Context: I’m a Belgian archaeologist, art historian and currently studying heritage. Many of my classes include museology and de-colonising museums which is relevant due to the colonisation of Rwanda, Burundi and especially Congo. Also case studies about the Benin Bronzes and the Elgin marbles.
I had to read an article about the restitution of stolen art which talked about the Benin Bronzes and the Elgin marbles. In that same timeframe, I watched a video about the last craftsmen skilled in making Benin Bronzes by Business Insider.
The craftsman in the video mentions how he applauds the Nigerian government for its efforts in trying to get the historic bronzes back to Nigeria, but what struck me the most was his plea for the same amount of attention for modern craftsmen because the craft today is disappearing.
It reminded me of the second time I visited Rwanda and went to the Ethnographic Museum in Butare (Institute of National Museums Rwanda), where there was one story about a Rwandan form of high jumping which is now lost to colonialism, and another instance was a display of Rwandan cultural artefacts AND a woman doing beadwork in the museum.
I started reflecting back to the museums I know in Belgium and to an extension the whole of Europe. We have two types of museums; the first is the art museum which is paint on canvas, the second is the (national) museum for cultural history. Optionally are archaeological museums.
It made me think (bear with me). Art museums (which include modern art in the same building) are very lovely. You always hear about it: new exhibition, new special piece required, once in a lifetime view of… “Old” and contemporary works are exhibited together. How subject A influenced subject B. Look at how style developed. Look at how subjects/clients/social constructs/… developed. Look at the beauty of Jan van Eyck and the Ghent altarpiece and now look at Bruegel and Rubens 100 years later.
Cultural history museums, as big as they are, are usually very … dead. You can visit once, see what there is to see and then not visit again in four years and everything is still very much the same. Although many museums have made an effort in saying “yes these things were required because of colonialism”, it’s usually limited to a plaque somewhere and maybe a photograph which in time was like “look how cool I am looting these things” with a description now saying “see how not cool it is to loot these things”. None of this includes excuses, restitution, exchange of art,… nothing.
Cultural history museums are sort of frozen in time. The - we don’t know what to do with ourselves- kind of exhibitions floating between “look at the cool stuff we have” and the unease of how they got them.
All the artefacts are sitting there as meaningless objects from a bygone era. As objects from a place that no longer exists, made by people that no longer exist for an audience that doesn’t exist. When I go to the Royal Museum for Central Africa near Brussels, I see many objects from predominantly Congo (DRC) with an audience that is barely worthy of being called African or coloured for that matter.
UNESCO is so adamant we preserve intangible heritage, the UN prioritises including third world countries in the equation and promote sustainable development. None of this helps in dealing with post-colonialism.
I don’t claim that any of what I’m writing below will be the solution, but I may dare to argue that some of these actions do fit within the UNESCO conventions we all massively agreed on.
Take for instance the craftsman making Benin Bronzes in modern day Nigeria. None of their work is in a museum. They have to sell their work on the roadside. Can you imagine buying a Warhol on the roadside? Protect local/traditional craftsmen with labels similar to the ones used exuberantly by World Heritage sites (f.e. Pyramids at Gizeh, UNESCO 1972’s “list”).
Cultural history museums should buy current art producing people’s work because art is not just limited to painted canvas, maybe marble statues. Art is everything. We can have old and new paintings together, but we refuse to bring old and new bronzes, marbles, baskets, instruments … together. Even going as far as excluding African modern art (which is fantastic) into western museums.
Make cultural history museums alive again. Let them show change in time too! The colonialist nation state no longer exists, why should we pretend that cultural history collections are made for colonising nations? Presenting looted artefacts like we are doing now almost feels like saying “we won over you”, we make African culture a thing from the past. Something that no longer exists, that’s why it is in a museum. It’s fictionalising different cultures, similar to people now being surprised that native Americans still exist.
We have painted artworks in museums almost immediately after they are made nowadays. Yet with “artefacts”, we insist on making them archaeological. “Old, no where to be found in practice today, no way of recovering the why’s and how’s.” They were dead and we are making them as reanimating, “saving” as much as we can.
African, Asian, South American and Native American cultures are not dead needing to be revived by a white formerly colonising museum institute.
Invite people over to display their craft, have guided tours by people from those places, let them tell the story, show what decolonisation looks like, show what reconnection looks like, support young talent... Have traditional Rwandan geometric painted art next to a contemporary Rwandan artist’s work. Have people come over to tell traditional and modern stories! Protect oral culture! Pay them the price their art is worth! If we can pay millions for Van Gogh, why not pay 100$ US for a contemporary Benin Bronze?
The west is so comfortable with having its painted artworks around the world, in hands of oligarchs, royal families, industrial magnates exchange them or have them on loan everywhere, yet with art we DIDN’T EVEN MAKE OURSELVES, we’re like “but it’s ours now. It’s here now.” The International Council Of Museums is sleeping on thousands of opportunities. Museum goers are no longer just the white, from-that-nation-derived audience. Countries are now multi-cultural, multi-colored, multi-curious. Accommodate those people. They want to see cool stuff too, they want to see old and new art from around the world too. Why not from their parent's places too?
So my basic question. Am I talking nonsense with this? Is this still a coloniser’s view? Are any of the points I made valuable? Opinions? Additions? Roast me even, this is important stuff. We need things to change. The current paradigm is broken.
