Renovating the AfricaMuseum

Title: Renovating the AfricaMuseum
Authors: Margot Luyckfasseel, Sarah Van Beurden, Gillian Mathys, Tracy Tansia
Media Outlet: Africa is a Country

“The effort to decolonize, repeatedly acclaimed in the Directors’ discourses, is not only hard to reconcile with the idea of the museum as an impartial forum, it is also too invisible in practice. The integration of work by contemporary Congolese artists is an illustration of that same principle. If their work is not capable of negating the effects of colonial propaganda engrained in the building it is not because their work is not strong enough, but because there are not enough efforts to physically “decolonize” the building. The museum building is indeed protected heritage, which complicates such attempts, and which is why some voices argue that the building should serve as a museum of Western and Belgian colonization of Africa, including its propaganda apparatus, its daily practices, and its ways of representation, instead of as a museum of Africa.”