Publicizing
African Voices:
Providing a Portal to Africa
Christophe Viret
Academic Writing (Fall 2011)
Africa Is Not a Country
Professor Ami Shah
P
lacing African people in natural history museums has been a source of
contention among African studies scholars for decades. Showcasing African
cultures alongside flora and fauna, in a building specifically intended for nature,
brands them as inferior to other cultures; natural history museums inherently
impose a demeaning lens upon African culture. In addition, during most of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, African-themed exhibits in these museums
were based on racist, colonial views of Africa and comprised gross generalizations
regarding African cultures. Starting in the 1980’s, however, more culturally sensitive
and accurate exhibits began to emerge in the United States. The African Voices hall
at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and its corresponding
website, created in 1999, exemplify this trend. Indeed, while it remains a depiction
of culture within a setting devoted to natural history, the exhibit and its publicity
methods still represent a great leap forward from the ethnocentric portrayals of
Africa that characterized U.S. natural history museums of the past. Reflecting
changing cultural norms and financial considerations within the United States,
African Voices and its online counterpart present Africa’s role in globalization
and the continent’s history, art, and cultures, through an interactive educational
approach. The result is an exhibit that promotes cultural accuracy and fosters a
better understanding of Africa.
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My tenthgrade history
teacher sparked
my interest in
museology,
the study of
museums. Our
final project
involved
choosing any museum and
analyzing its representation of the
past. How our society chooses to
construct depictions of the past, and
what this reveals about us, became
more fascinating to me than the
events themselves.
Last fall, I enrolled in the
Writing 101 class “Africa Is Not
a Country!”, which explored our
culture’s misconceptions of Africa
and their consequences. One of our
books’ introductions described how
these misunderstandings permeate
numerous facets of our lives. As
soon as I came across the word
“museum,” I knew that my final
paper would be related to museums’
portrayals of Africa.
However, narrowing my
paper’s scope was not easy. My
inability to visit major museums
before the due date was the biggest
obstacle, so I instead wrote about
modes of publicizing African
exhibits. Choosing one museum
to focus on was equally difficult. I
initially wrote my entire paper about
Chicago’s Field Museum. But after a
workshop-style feedback session in
my Writing 101 class, I switched to
the Smithsonian, which had a more
extensive internet presence.
During the writing process, I
struggled with the contradiction
between the Smithsonian’s
progressive African Voices exhibit
and its dehumanizing location – a
natural history museum, reserved
for plants and animals. The meaning
of setting helps determine a
museum’s legacy, and this exhibition
takes one important step toward
attaining a more accurate view of
Africa. However, more work needs
to be done.
http://www.mnh.si.edu/africanvoices/index.html
Causes of Construction
Part of a larger phenomenon of the changing roles of museums in
American society, the Smithsonian’s construction of the African Voices exhibit was
only partially motivated by the need for more accuracy in representing Africa. Its
two main causes were the increasing need for engagement and interaction between
viewers and museum exhibits, and changing cultural norms that made offensive
portrayals of Africa less acceptable. For much of the twentieth century, museums
were designed according to the concept of “formal didacticism,” or “the conviction
that placing objects on view was sufficient to ensure learning” (Hooper-Greenhill,
2000, p. 2). However, as the field of education changed to emphasize interactive
learning and student engagement with the process of learning itself, museums’
methods of educating viewers shifted, too. Museums’ approaches to education have
changed to “prioritiz[ing] the experience and learning needs of the learner” with
“the diverse social characteristics and cultural attitudes of differentiated audiences”
in mind (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000, p. 3). In other words, due to such changes in
educational methods, viewers have come to expect engaging and interactive
learning experiences, prompting museums to redesign their exhibits to fulfill this
expectation. The new African Voices exhibit includes a number of constructed
situations that make the viewer feel as though he or she is walking around in Africa,
including numerous audio recordings of African studies scholars and African
people – in other words, actual African voices.
Moreover, the African Voices website acts as an extension of the exhibit
itself, engaging the viewer not only at the Smithsonian but also at home through
numerous online exhibits. It enables anyone to browse through various themes that
the museum covers and even experience entire sections of it online. The website’s
Ghanaian market exemplifies this: viewers can scroll through a visual depiction
of an actual market, clicking on vendors to learn about their life stories and the
origins of the products being sold. If one finishes browsing the market, he or she
can then travel to Mali, learn about the artistic practice of dying mudcloth, and
create some mudcloth patterns of his or her own. The website’s design engages the
viewer almost in the same way as the renovated exhibit demonstrates the trend of
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more interactive museum experiences.
The need to present a more culturally acceptable and financially viable
representation of Africa formed the second impetus to renovate the
Smithsonian exhibit. As the United States became more multiracial
due to increased immigration from Latin America and Asia
after 1965, and more tolerant of other races after the civil rights
movement, museums that promoted a disparaging view of certain
cultures or races lost their relevance and appeal to the public. Local
African studies scholars, African diplomats, and African American
groups and organizations lambasted the “Hall of African Cultures,”
African Voices’ predecessor, because of its generally racist portrayal
of Africa, including several diorama labels that featured overtly
racist and offensive wording (Arnoldi, 2001, p. 1). This criticism
prompted the Smithsonian to close the “Hall of African Cultures”
in 1992 and appoint a committee of “Africans, African Americans,
Africanists, and community leaders” to design a new permanent
exhibit featuring a more just and accurate portrayal of Africa (Arnoldi, 2001, p. 1) .
The Smithsonian renovated its exhibit not only to make its representation of African
culture more cosmopolitan and accurate, but also for financial reasons. Museums
must be able to tailor their exhibitory offerings to changes in demographics and
cultural norms – for example, an increase in minority visitors (McLean, 1997, p.
62). Maintaining cultural relevance is crucial for museums to remain economically
viable. In fact, the Smithsonian held focus groups to ensure African Voices appealed
to its two target groups – those visiting the Smithsonian as a whole, and those
specifically interested in the exhibit (Arnoldi, 2001, p. 24, 19).
Promoting the Exhibit
While a combination of cultural and economic factors prompted African
Voices’ construction, the exhibit’s online promotion also reflects the website’s dual
creation goals of fostering an informed view of Africa and providing an engaging
experience to viewers. Publicizing African culture through media such as museum
websites is almost as culturally relevant as the carefully constructed depictions
in museum exhibits themselves. Such publicity creates viewers’ expectations for
later exposure to African cultures, affecting what they draw from their experiences
and what they deem to be “authentic” African cultures. Travel in Africa, which
“simultaneously affirm[s] and disturb[s] familiar assumptions” regarding the
continent, according to one scholar, similarly exemplifies this trend of preconceived
notions, setting the stage for experiences of Africa. Tourists visiting South Africa
often view their trip as a disappointment because South Africa appears to be “too
much ‘like America’ and … therefore, insufficiently pristine or primitive” (Mathers,
2006, p. 72, 76). Thus, in order for a museum such as the Smithsonian to even open
up the possibility of its audiences’ development of an accurate view of Africa, it has
to publicize its exhibit in a way that does not tie into our conception of Africa as
radically exotic. This section explores how the Smithsonian managed to accomplish
this by promoting cultural accuracy through fostering a better understanding of
Africa. The main misconceptions the website dispels are that Africa has not played
a part in globalization, has very little recorded history, and has static societies that
have experienced little significant change. The website also undermines the notion
that African objects and tools can be equated with art, and that Africa is exotic and
its physical environment makes up its main notable feature.
The Smithsonian’s promotion of African Voices does not reflect the
constructed exoticism that long pervaded our notion of Africa — and still remains
in other museums’ African exhibits. According to its website, the Smithsonian
aims to expose viewers to Africa by examining “the diversity, dynamism, and
global influence of Africa’s peoples and cultures over time in the realms of family,
work, [and] community.” This connection of Africa to our present-day world is
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The Smithsonian’s National
Museum of Natural History
opened its African Voices exhibit
in 1999.
a milestone in bettering Americans’ perceptions of Africa African Voices also does not play into the previously
because it depicts the continent in the light of globalization widespread practice of treating African cultural artifacts
and modernization. Asserting that Africa has played a role as art in museums. The removal of African commodities
in these processes represents an “attempt to dismantle a long from their cultural context by treating them as art leads to
history of Western stereotypes that have pictured Africa as misunderstandings of African cultures on the viewer’s part
the “dark continent”—in turns exotic, savage, monolithic, by widening the perceived divide between those cultures
timeless, romantic, primitive” (Gardullo, 2010, p. 64). By and the viewers (Littles, 2006, p. 22). Instead, the website
tying Africa into the global web of interactions and cultural acknowledges and explains the discrepancy between
exchange that pervades our world today, African Voices helps African and American conceptions of art and the differing
dismantle such false stereotypes of
dichotomies between art objects
Africa. Also, the website’s wording
and functional objects in the
does not fabricate an exoticized
two cultures. For example, an indepiction of Africa or distance its
depth exploration of Mali Bamana
cultures from our own. In contrast,
mudcloth explains that the fabric,
the permanent African exhibit at
which artisans hand-paint, serves
the Field Museum, a natural history
the functional use of becoming
museum in Chicago and one of
blankets and clothes to keep people
the Smithsonian’s peers, plays up
warm. But the mudcloth also
such cultural differences. The first
contains patterns that signify major
paragraph that viewers come across
life transitions or important political
on its website includes extreme,
events.
African Voices differs from
sensationalist language, including
other Africa-based exhibits because
adjectives such as “vast,” “varied,”
it does not feature animals and
“holy,” “royal,” “exquisite,” and
other natural aspects of Africa. Its
“great” that exoticize the continent.
predecessor, the “Hall of African
The Smithsonian’s website refrains
Cultures,” emphasized that Africa’s
from such language, reflecting its
cultural and geographic diversity
primary goal of presenting African
went hand in hand, dehumanizing
culture and society to viewers, rather
Africans by demoting them to the
than reinforcing a representation
level of flora and fauna. In contrast,
of Africa that corresponds to past
the Field Museum’s current Africa
cultural norms.
In addition, the African
exhibit focuses on the union of people
Voices website devotes an entire
and natural habitats there. Instead,
section
to
African
history,
the Smithsonian’s promotion of
covering the arc of African cultural
African Voices on its website makes
Visitors can explore mudcloth, which provide
development from 3100 BC to
no mention of wildlife, big game, or
warmth for blankets and clothes and contain
the present. This furthers the
safaris, or even the natural habitats
patterns that signify major life transitions or
invalidation of false stereotypes by
of Africa. By eschewing exoticized
important political events.
opposing the notion that Africa
views of Africa, the website prompts
lacks any notable history or that African culture and societies viewers to learn about African culture through the mindset
have not evolved over the course of time. The commonly of similarity rather than difference.
held belief that African societies have not progressed without
outside help, basically stagnating since the dawn of time, Educational Implications
African Voices also sets the stage for educational
bears the underlying implication that Africans are uniformly culturally inferior to other peoples. It also rests on the fact programs that foster an in-depth understanding of Africa.
that the more cyclical view of time that is commonplace in As a whole, according to its educational outreach website,
Africa differs from European definitions of the concepts the Smithsonian’s educational goal is to “nurture curiosity,
of time, and “progress,” as linear (Keim, 2009, p. 10). The prompting the desire to know more” through the use of
website’s historical overview prepares the viewer to learn “every medium at our disposal to engage visitors around
about sophisticated African tools and inventions once he questions of how we know what we know.” In order to
or she enters the museum, and to accept that Africa has, at achieve this, African Voices prompts viewers to examine
times, been a center of great economic and political power, African self-expression and self-representation, catalyzing a
influencing the course of development of other civilizations process of self-reflection that exposes the effects of our gaze
on our perception of Africa.
around the world.
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African Voices’ educational purpose is based on the complex process of
removing the lens that American norms and judgments have constructed between
the viewers and representations of Africa. According to Mary Jo
Arnoldi, one of the exhibit’s curators, it was designed to “have
the African voices frame the interpretation and let the museum
become secondary” (Trescott, 1999). The exhibit encourages
students to listen to music, view films, and read literature from
a certain culture in order to glean information about its norms
and methods of expression. African Voices accomplishes this
by emphasizing African art and music as it relates to everyday
life on the continent. For example, as a part of its online exhibit
about the aqal, the traditional, portable domicile of Somali
nomads, the artistic aspects of creating the aqal and the home
decorations to furnish it are as emphasized as the actual process
of building it. Focusing on Somali interior design allows viewers
to learn about norms regarding the arts and what constitutes
an aesthetically pleasing object in Somalia. According to the
Smithsonian’s lesson plan for teachers, exposing students
to such everyday artwork allows them to “sort through the
distinction between form and content, the influence of style
on personal taste, the individuality/commonality of artistic
idiom, and the various levels at which symbolic meaning can
be ‘read.’ ” Emphasizing cultural sophistication through the arts
contradicts viewing African cultures as primitive. In addition,
teaching about modes of expression in Africa allows students to
reflect on their own behavioral and expressive styles, prompting
them to “initiate a process of … self-reflection that can lessen
ethnocentrism.” African Voices not only provides students with
better tools to analyze and comprehend African cultures, but also leads them to
ponder how adhering to their own cultural norms has shaped their perception of
other cultures.
Self-reflection pervades the Smithsonian’s use of non-artistic elements of
African cultures to educate viewers. According to the lesson plan posted on the
museum’s website, observing elements of non-verbal interaction such as interactive
distance, touching, postural orientation, interactive gaze, and gestures can help
students pinpoint certain actions that identify people with one’s culture (CerroniLong, 1993, p. 1). Such in-depth observations of Africans far surpass the superficial
conception of African simplicity and primitiveness that has plagued American
thought in the past. While it is important to note that the Smithsonian does not
feature actual, live people, its physical construction, as well as its website, includes
African scenarios that portray such interactions. Encouraging students to take in
cultural information this way allows them to make founded and more accurate
judgments about Africa and its inhabitants. Viewers can juxtapose Africans’ modes
of communication with their own to determine how differences between the two
bring about judgments and misconceptions of African cultures.
The Learning Center on the African Voices website further shifts the
gaze usually imposed on Africa by giving viewers access to alternative African
representations of the continent. This page has an extensive annotated bibliography
of books, articles, and websites that provide additional information about African
history and art history, culture, and religion. They include websites constructed
by African studies scholars at major universities, which indicates the long-term
academic importance of studying African culture. The inclusion of links to
museum websites in Africa promotes learning about culture as Africans display
it, an experience less mediated by the American gaze. This represents yet another
removal of a U.S. lens between viewers and Africa.
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Viewers can scroll through a
visual depiction of an actual
market, clicking on vendors to
learn about their life stories and
the origins of the products being
sold.
Conclusion
as other people contradicts placing such a representation
in a space meant for animals. While the content and form
of African Voices does justice to the inhabitants of Africa,
its location continues the age-old trend of dehumanizing
Africans in museums.
After experiencing African Voices, one must also
consider the effects of lumping innumerable disparate
entities together under the umbrella of Africa. While visiting
the exhibit dispels common stereotypes of the continent, it
might not foster an understanding of the similarities and
differences between various African cultures. In other words,
the museum’s demonstration of different broad aspects of
Africa through in-depth, specific examples from various
cultures might lead the viewer to think of each culture
as a different facet of an African whole. This suggests that
though individual museums have a duty to enlighten the
public about other cultures, because they generally do not
play a big role in everyday life, they cannot perform the
bulk of this task. Innumerable museum exhibits would be
required to fully explain the intricacies of the similarities
and differences between African cultures. Other social and
cultural institutions, as well as our country’s educational
system, then, have an obligation to support museum efforts
to cultivate more culturally sensitive views of the world. Only
time will tell if the creation of improved African exhibits
in museums will spur a transformation of our nation’s
perception of Africa.
The Smithsonian effectively provides a portal to
Africa by physically encouraging viewers to continue their
exploration of the continent beyond the website. It also
dispels many of the misconceptions that pervade American
perceptions of Africa; most notably, it refutes the notion that
African societies are more primitive than ours.
Yet the concept of devoting space to Africa within
natural history museums still automatically demotes African
culture. Smithsonian curator Paul Gardullo notes that there
are “racial and cultural implications and/or ramifications
of continuing to sandwich exhibits about living cultures,
no matter how forward-looking, between stuffed mammals
and dinosaur bones” (2004, p. 65). Natural history museums
delineate a space meant for animals and other organisms
with complex nervous systems that are not as developed as
those of humans. Museums that “tell stories about Africa
that blend nature and culture,” argues one scholar, lead to the
risk of “making African wildlife human and African people
part of the natural landscape” (Mathers, 2006, p. 66). One
of the exhibit’s primary goals was to “counterbalance the
widespread public perceptions of contemporary Africa as a
continent of ‘passive victims,’ helplessly plagued by famine,
war, poverty, and epidemics” by “show[ing] Africans as the
primary actors in their own lives” (Mason, 2001). But this
intent of portraying Africans as equally developed and capable
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