Various personalities from the world of culture, including the writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature, Wolé Soyinka, advocated, on Saturday, new approaches to redefine museums and move away from Western models in the context of restitution of Art objects Africans.
”We don’t have to look very far if we want to be original, dynamic,” said the Nigerian political activist and writer for whom we need to find a new way of accessing museums.
The novelist poses “the profound necessity of relational museums”, calling for a policy of “restitution”, or even “reparation”.
He was speaking at a two-day symposium (November 9-10) in Dakar organized on the sidelines of the 15th Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar (November 7-December 7).
For Soyinka, ”it’s about presenting a museum in which history is truly at the heart. And it’s a challenge for those who are really looking for a dynamic theme for a new museum.
In his book ”The burden of memory, muse of forgiveness” (1998), the Nobel Prize pushes this idea of new museums beyond the binary oppositions between the aesthetics of the colonizers and that of the colonized, by calling for a concept of ”Restitution”, if not ”Reparation”.
”Who has the power to revive the aesthetic effect of beauty in all cultures, including those that have been devalued, rejected or destroyed? ” he asked.
According to him, an aesthetic of ‘restitution’, beyond the simple recognition of historical injustices, is necessary and has the power to revive the effect of beauty in all cultures, thus allowing modes of engagement, of memory and solidarity against repressive cultural domination.
The Senegalese painter, Viyé Diba, invites us to reflect on new types of mediation between art objects and its populations to redefine the new content of museums.
”It is up to us to organize a parallel economy with the return of these objects,” says Mr. Diba, who speaks of ”relocation rather than ”restitution” if it involves bringing in the works art and put them in the same museums as in the West.
The Senegalese curator, Marie Hélène Pereira, who works at the House of World Cultures in Berlin (Germany) believes that this question of rethinking museums in Africa is simply a reflection around our spaces, our institutions which are places of memory .
”When we go beyond the collection, art creation, art object, tangible aspect, it is also important to reflect on the intangible aspect, intangible heritage and see how places of memory can create spaces and opportunities to learn from this intangible heritage,” she said.
The symposium which continues this Sunday is organized by the Cheikh Hamidou Kane Virtual University of Senegal in partnership with New York University in Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi built on water and whose inauguration is planned for 2025.
