[Re:]Entanglements: Colonial Collections in Decolonial Times curated by Paul Basu

Abstract

[Re:]Entanglements: Colonial Collections in Decolonial Times is an exhibition drawn from the Museum Affordances/[Re:]Entanglements project led by Paul Basu, formerly at SOAS University of London. The exhibition revisits the ethnographic archive assembled by the colonial anthropologist Northcote W. Thomas in Southern Nigeria and Sierra Leone between 1909 and 1915. The title itself plays on the ideas of the entangling of Africa and the West during the colonial period, and with a continued, renewed, and expanded process of reengagement that includes community involvement and works by artists inspired by (and critical of) the collection and its original frame of reference. A central question raised by the exhibition is whether we can see beyond the violence of the colonial period, especially now, when the Black Lives Matter movement has drawn attention to continued inequities in Western cultures as well as between world populations. The archive itself includes some 3,000 objects; at least 700 sound recordings (now digitized); a large body of photographic material consisting of 5,200 surviving glass negatives, 6,200 loose prints, and three eight-volume album sets; published work and fieldnotes; and botanical specimens. 1 [Re:]Entanglements: Colonial Collections in Decolonial Times, installation view of “The Making of a Colonial Anthropological Archive” display, including objects collected by Northcote Thomas in Nigeria and Sierra Leone between 1909 and 1915. Photo: Paul Basu