Helping the Protectors of Culture in Africa

By Jeff Baron
Staff Writer

Washington, DC April 19, 2010 - The work of saving cultural heritage is being done by museums throughout Africa, and the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation has been providing much-needed help.

In Africa, the challenges are particularly great: Some museums have extensive collections of artifacts but few resources to preserve and protect them, let alone display them as much or as well as curators would like. The Ambassadors Fund has supported a variety of projects to improve conditions in Africa's museums, from the repair or replacement of leaky roofs to the purchase of equipment and training in the preservation of collections.

In Senegal, for example, the fund came to the aid of a museum on Gorée Island, the World Heritage Site at Africa's westernmost tip best known as a point of departure for many slaves taken to the Americas in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The island, off the coast of the capital, Dakar, is a popular tourist destination.

The Henriette Bathily Women's Museum ( http://mufem.org/ ) on Gorée preserves rare photographs, traditional art, textiles and other items documenting the role of women in Senegal over several centuries. But both the museum and its collection had been suffering from deterioration. The two problems were related: The museum, located in a house built in 1777, could not keep out the heat, dust, moisture, fierce sunlight and bugs that were attacking the collection.

"Currently, the museum lacks climate control; its windows and doors are also not weatherproofed and ventilation is an issue," said an Ambassadors Fund report. "Gorée is very hot and humid during the summer months when powerful rainstorms are common. During the winter months it is quite windy and dusty. The museum's collections have been damaged by exposure to this environment."

Among the improvements made under an Ambassadors Fund grant: air conditioning, caulking and shades for the windows, new electrical wiring to prevent fires, improved lighting, fresh paint, repairs in the galleries, and conservation of "the museum's rare photographs, writings, textiles and other artifacts that document women's contributions to Senegalese society," the report said.

The work also included the installation of new display cases and information panels in French and English, and publication of a catalogue on the museum's collection and women's history in Senegal.

In the Republic of the Congo's capital, Brazzaville, the National Museum suffers from some of the same challenges as Senegal's museum - a lack of resources plus the heat and humidity of equatorial Africa. The museum, like all of Congo, also struggled through the aftereffects of civil wars in 1997 and 1998-99; a low-level guerrilla war continued until final peace accords were signed in 2003.

The National Museum has display space in a government building, but before it received the Ambassadors Fund grant, its storage space, which contained most of its collection, provided little protection from the elements, resulting in damage to some historical pieces. Its office was little better, and the 15 staff members had to make do with one laptop computer.

The Congolese government agreed to provide better storage and office space, and the Ambassadors Fund grant paid for computers, cameras and other equipment, plus air conditioning for the workroom, so the staff could research and catalogue the more than 2,200 masks, musical instruments, statues, pottery objects, and arts and crafts in the collection. The collection is stored behind the museum's small display rooms. The grant also supported bringing Elisabeth Cornu, head objects conservator for Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, to Brazzaville to train museum staff in conservation and in documenting objects in the collection.

In Burundi, the collection of the National Museum in Gitega was in danger of destruction by people who valued it: members of the public. Cultural artifacts were displayed in the open, either on the floor or mounted on wooden boards, and visitors could - and often did - handle them and wear them down. The objects were also subject to damage from dust and sunlight.

The Ambassadors Fund paid to give the collection simple protective measures. Artifacts were put behind glass panels, under electric lighting, and windows were covered with a film to block harmful ultraviolet light.

Visitors can no longer handle the valuable artifacts, but they can understand them better with the addition of descriptive labels in Kirundi, French and English. The museum also has been enhanced with speakers that play recordings of traditional Burundian music.

And in Kenya, the Old Town of the island of Lamu is considered one of East Africa's oldest Swahili settlements. As a trading center for several centuries, Lamu has been a mixing bowl for Bantu, Arab, Persian, Indian and European cultures, and it is on the list of World Heritage Sites. It also is known as a center for scholarship on the Islamic and Swahili cultures.

The Lamu Museum, home to an extensive ethnographical collection, was badly dilapidated. An Ambassadors Fund grant supported an extensive restoration: replacement of rotten ceiling joists and a worn-out roof, electrical and plumbing repairs, and refinishing work on walls. As a result, the museum is now one of the most popular tourist activities in town, with the nominal admission fees generating income for other cultural preservation and activities.

The Ambassadors Fund has also helped with the preservation of handwritten Swahili manuscripts and a 200-year-old map in the Lamu Fort library.

Source: U.S. Department of State