The members of the new network undertake, among other things, “to pool” their efforts “to document, preserve and reinterpret the collections in Africa and Europe”.
Sixty museum directors from 38 African and European countries created a network of exchanges and collaboration on Friday, April 28 in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, to develop lasting links and joint exhibition itineraries, they said. stated in a statement.
This meeting, unprecedented in its form and scope, took place as several European countries began a process of restoring the heritage looted from Africa during the colonial period. “Heritage, we must ensure that it is not a conflicting space but a space for dialogue”said at a press conference Hamady Bocoum, director of the Museum of Black Civilizations in Senegal.
Pooling
“We must not only see in terms of elements of restitution. We (African countries) must not remain in the perspective of subordination, thinking that our heritage is to be found in European museums. Africa continues to produce. We must continue to make collections of African art, of contemporary art so that tomorrow, we will not be told that we have been robbed again”he added. “We do not want to centralize colonization in the narrative of African history”he also said, referring to “parenthesis” in view of the millenary history of the continent.
In their joint statement, museum directors undertake to “pool” their efforts “to document, preserve and reinterpret collections in Africa and Europe and to make them available to the public through digitization, research, education and exhibitions”. “We consider that the development of joint traveling exhibitions, with multiple partners, circulating in Africa and Europe is an instrument for transforming the narratives that build our vision of the world”they continue.
“New Thinking”
The museum directors presented their program to political partners and donors who could contribute to its sustainability, insisting that this meeting was only a stage. “We want to support them, to finance them because I think it’s a subject of development, to protect heritage, to make it available, to use it for education”Rémy Rioux, director general of the French Development Agency, told AFP.
“Germany’s cultural policy aims for a new partnership with African countries (…) in a context of truth and trust. Thus, restitution is not and will not be an end but the beginning of a new thinking”for his part underlined Andreas Goergen, Secretary General of the German Ministry of Culture.