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How should pre-colonial Africa be curated in the museum context?

Ana Lucia Araujo · 21 Feb 2025

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4 korrents from this piece ↓

Ana Lucia Araujo did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    In a British museum, any attempt to tell the history of pre-colonial Africa will always be incomplete.

    Their wordsin the context of a British museum, any attempt to tell this history will always be incomplete.

  2. Our reading

    Liverpool’s old International Slavery Museum showed Africa in a British-centred way that neglected West Central Africa, the largest slave-exporting region.

    Their wordsBy doing so, the museum failed to explain the processes of enslavement in West Central Africa, the most important slave-exporting region, dominated by Luso-Brazilian slave merchants.

  3. Our reading

    Exhibitions and books that try to tell everything are doomed to fail.

    Their wordsBut both the exhibition and the book that try to tell everything are doomed to fail.

  4. Our reading

    European museums would not mix objects from different cultures and periods in one display, yet they do so with African objects.

    Their wordsYet, no European museum of European cultures would dare to mix together disparate objects from different cultures, regions, and periods in the same display.

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