London – In 1897, the British Army seized thousands of invaluable artefacts known as Benin Bronze and launched a violent attack on the Nigerian city of Benin.
Since then, there have been hopes of bringing them back from Western museums.
On Friday, Asha moved closer to reality with the release of the first images of the planned Edo Museum of West African Art, which will house about 300 items on loan from European museums – if money can be raised to build them.
The three-story building, designed by David Edge, looks almost like the palace of the ancient kingdom of Benin. Mr Adjay said his aim was to be completed in five years, he said in a telephone interview.
On Friday, architects, British museums and Nigerian officials also announced a 4 4 million archeological project to excavate ancient relics, including parts of the city walls, a planned museum site and other parts of Benin City.
This development will be for preachers who request the return of artefacts taken from Africa during the colonial era. But in a telephone interview, Mr. Ajay, an architect behind the National Museum of African-African History and Culture at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, Washington, part of the Smithsonian Institution, seemed very excited about what it could mean for the people of Benin. It can help spark a “revival of African culture”, and be a place for residents to reconnect with their past and an exhibition for the city’s contemporary artists.
“It should be for the community first,” he said, “and the international site second.”
Mr Ajay also spoke about his thinking behind the museum, his passion for the Benin Bronze and his views on the discussion of returning items to Africa from Western museums. This is the edited extract of that conversation.
Calls have been coming for a museum in Benin Bronze in Nigeria for many decades. What did you draw for this project?
To show the power of what a museum can be in the 21st century. It’s not just a container of curiosity. It makes no sense in Africa – there is no empire, or “discovery” of what America is or China.
But what is really important is to deal with the real elephant in the room, which is the impact of colonialism on African cultures. It is the central debate that the continent needs to have with itself, about its own history, and the colonial destruction that has happened with colonialism. Because there is indeed a myth that Africans know their culture, but a lot of things have become ghosts because of colonialism, and there are a lot of things that are misunderstood because of the creations of colonialism – Christianity, Islam, etc.
I’m not criticizing those religions, but they have kind of undermined the continent’s cultural heritage. So this is a re-creation of the basic meaning of objects. And it does justice to re-training, for me, to rethink what a museum is in the room. She will not become a Western model.
So putting the rear bronze on display is not the end point for you, but a start?
OK: The beginning of the renaissance of African culture. You need objects objects because the objects provide the province and materiality that you need to start connecting.
When you talk about creating a non-Western museum, how can it be different? The images you have published still have a display case with the objects in them.
When I say it will be different, I mean it will be different in its sense. It’s different from what he’s trying to do.
Yes, it will have vitrines with objects. But it doesn’t just happen, ‘The restoration of these bronzes is here, and here it is in beautiful cases.’ It won’t attract locals – not many, maybe elite class. We have spent a lot of time developing the museum as a community center that will be part of the daily rituals and life of the community.
The design looks almost like a castle. What story would you expect to tell him?
The building has a little romantic storyline. I have visited Benin City many times and it is one of the best places in the world for me: with Egypt, with Kyoto, with Athens. It is a center for understanding sub-Saharan African culture. But you just go, and it’s a kind of concrete jungle, so you have to dig into the past, and bring it back to life.
Thanks, a lot of it is still underground. So part of what we’re doing with the British Museum is excavating old walls. I am obsessed with these walls: concentric circles that interact with each other and create this kind of extraordinary pattern. From the satellite images, it is larger than the Great Wall of China. So we need excavations so we can make them visible.
Along with the building, it’s a kind of re-enactment of the palace walls, behind which these constructions and pavilions have appeared, a kind of abstraction of how Benin City will look forward – what you would have felt if you had observed. It is trying to make part of the experience in contemporary language.
Benin Bronze is what the campaigners really wanted to return to Benin City and show in this museum. What do those objects mean to you?
The first time I saw them it was profound – and it still is. The brass plaques that were in the palaces and seeing these extraordinary brass heads this is a truly prestigious, incredible culture. It immediately flooded these cultures I had, it was somehow undeveloped. It was broken down by him and showed me that there is artistry here, and mastery of culture.
When I was working on the Smithsonian I really started doing a lot of research in Yoruba and Benin and this really inspired my idea.
Your work on this museum puts you in the middle of a discussion about whether you should return to Africa from Western museums. Where do you stand on it?
Re-installation is about to take place, eventually. Buzzets need to be returned. In the 21st century, this is no longer the case. But the timeline and how they have been brought back, and the skills to manage managed budgets have to be developed on the continent. And I think it’s also part of the job of museums and cultures and societies in the West that now have these the objectives: to support the construction of this infrastructure, to allow countries to reclaim these objects objects. It is their cultural heritage.
Archaeological excavations often take time. When do you think the museum will be completed?
We are all working on a timeline of almost five years, which is fast for a cultural infrastructure facility. It took nine years to make Smithsonian!
I believe that the people of Benin City have been waiting since 1897, not so much for another five years.
No. People really deserve this.
