"Petit À Petit": Contemporary Art and Decolonial Horizons in Belgium's AfricaMuseum

Download or read book "Petit À Petit": Contemporary Art and Decolonial Horizons in Belgium's AfricaMuseum written by Elaine Ericksen Sullivan and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 2018, Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa reopened to the public, five years after closing for an extensive renovation. Rebranded the AfricaMuseum, the institution was eager to shed its colonial image and highlight its new "focus on decolonization." To do so, the museum emphasized the display of newly commissioned or acquired artworks by contemporary artists from the former Belgian colonies of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi. In this dissertation, I ask what work the contemporary art on view in the renovated museum is being asked to do, a question which guided my analysis of artworks and interviews with artists. Rather than "decolonizing" the museum, the artists have produced installations that expose violent histories of colonization previously ignored by the museum, raise questions about ongoing relationships between Belgium and Central Africa, and challenge the museum's role in representing African stories. This dissertation begins with consideration of two site-specific installations commissioned by the museum, "Ombres" (Shadows) by Freddy Tsimba and the multi-part "RE/STORE" project by Aimé Mpane and Jean-Pierre Müller. Both installations comment on the colonial memories embedded in the museum's very architecture, and counter the museum's earlier celebration of colonial conquest by bringing attention to Congolese experiences of colonial violence. The "RE/STORE" project in particular, which began as one sculpture by Mpane but has developed over two years into two sculptures and sixteen veils designed by Mpane and Jean-Pierre Müller, illustrates the gradual nature of the museum's moves toward "decolonizing." Mpane characterizes this as an unending process advancing "petit à petit," or "little by little." In addition to the commissions, the museum acquired numerous works of art by contemporary artists. I discuss three such works, by Aimé Ntakiyica, Michèle Magema, and Freddy Tsimba, all of which present personal stories with collective implications. These personal artworks create human connections between visitors and artists whose ancestors were dehumanized in earlier exhibitions within the museum. As the AfricaMuseum moves toward decolonizing, contemporary artworks provide opportunities for critique and connection, building on memories to imagine possible futures.