CONGO GREAT LAKES INTIATIVE
Activities
A Visit to the Horniman Museum and Study Collections Centre
On Saturday, 8 June, CGLI sponsored a visit to the Horniman Museum in South London, followed by a workshop at the museum’s Study Collections Centre. At the museum, participants received a private tour of the African Worlds exhibition as well as the opportunity to visit the rest of the museum and gardens. After lunch, which was provided by the museum, participants were transported by minicab to the museum’s Study Collections Centre in North Greenwich to engage in a hands-on workshop where they were able to work with a number of Congolese objects from the museum’s collections.
The Horniman Museum African Worlds exhibition
African Worlds is the first permanent exhibition in Britain dedicated to African art and culture. It is a co-curated exhibition which includes many voices: elders, maskers, drummers, diviners, artists and exiles as well as curators and anthropologists. The exhibition brings together a rich mixture of sculpture and decorative arts, displaying objects from across the continent of Africa, as well as artefacts from other countries including Brazil and Trinidad whose cultures were strongly influenced by Africa. Highlights of the exhibition include masterpieces of bronze art from Benin which depict the arrival of the first Europeans to Africa, and the spectacular Igbo Ijele, Africa's largest mask, and the only one of its kind on display in Britain. The Ijele sits alongside other impressive Dogon and Bwa masks from Mali and Burkina Faso which themselves tower up to five metres high. The gallery also features three religious altars from Benin, Haiti and Brazil which reveal an insight into non Western religious beliefs and draw parallels between African societies.
Visit to the Graves of Edmund Dene Morel and Sir Henry Morton Stanley
On Saturday, 25 May 2013, CGLI sponsored a daytrip to visit the graves two of the most influential British citizens of the late 19th/early 20th centuries: Sir Henry Morton Stanley, the “Breaker of Rocks,” and Edmund Dene Morel, the British journalist who led an international protest against the atrocities committed in the Congo. Approximately ten volunteers participated in the event.
CGLI Museum Exhibition and Interpretation Workshop
For most people museums are places to go to see exhibitions and to experience and learn about the collections on display. Exhibitions are the primary medium of communication in a museum, and for this reason, exhibition development and interpretation are important skills for any museum-goer to think critically about exhibitions and the objects on display. With this in mind, on Saturday, 23 March 2013, volunteers attended the CGLI Museum Exhibition and Interpretation Workshop, led by Constance Wyndham, a postgraduate student in the UCL Institute of Archaeology, and Julie Shackelford, a postgraduate student in the Material Culture Section of UCL Department of Anthropology.
The workshop began with a guided tour of the African Galleries permanent display at the British Museum, followed by the opportunity to make personal observations about the objects on display. Volunteers explored the African Galleries as a site of meaning-making and examined the fundamental components of exhibition displays, taking into consideration issues of collecting, architecture and design, spatial narratives, interpretation strategies and technologies, conservation, and public engagement. Afterwards, the group headed to the UCL Institute of Archaeology, located just a few short blocks from the museum, for an in depth discussion about the museum collections, including: message-making in a museum setting, how objects are collected and displayed, the politics of repatriation, and other key issues to thinking critically about museum exhibitions and displays.
CGLI Object Analysis Workshop
On Wednesday, 13 March 2013, CGLI hosted an Object Analysis Workshop at the Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum in Ladbroke Grove, London. Run by associates from the UCL Centre for Museums, Heritage and Material Culture Studies (CMHMCS), the workshop provided participants with the knowledge, skills and experience to critically analyse and evaluate the objects on display in museum exhibitions.
The workshop was open to anyone interested in learning more about how to engage with ethnographic objects, regardless of experience or expertise. It focused on: developing analytical techniques for examining the materials, style and form of ethnographic objects; learning various methods of how to observe, document and describe the objects; and a practical exploration of issues relating to exhibition, design and representation.
Utilising collections from Congo Great Lakes Initiative, as well as objects that participants brought from home, this workshop helped participants develop the skills and understanding necessary to understand objects and museum collections from the Congo.
Over twenty volunteers attended the CGLI Object Analysis Workshop, which began with a short presentation of the issues at hand, led by the associates from the UCL CMHMCS, followed by a number of activities where participants were able to engage with the objects in various ways. A lively discussion followed.
Quote from a volunteer:
“Object analysis training was amazing and gave me a sense of what we miss by overlooking traditional objects without penetrating the message they send out. Since this workshop, I have become very curious on every traditional or art object I come across and always try to give it a sense or question its significance. I have enhanced, through that training, my sense of critic of the reason of ‘things’.”