Title: Between Regionalization and Centralization: The Creation of the Musée Léopold II in Elisabethville (Musée national de Lubumbashi), Belgian Congo (1931–1961)
Abstract: AbstractSince “museumland” was revisited in the 1980s, different authors have studied the history of colonial museums in Europe within a broader discussion on colonial bias, the creation of traditions and the theory of representation. It has become clear, for example, how African utensils were exported to Europe, where they were exhibited as curiosa, ethnographical objects or art. But what happened when the very notion of the museum was exported back to Africa? Who created these institutes and in what context? Was the relationship between colonizers and colonized altered? Did the “social life” of the objects on show change? And what was the relationship between the “old” museums in Europe and the “new” ones created in the colony? These questions have rarely been studied. In this article, the creation of the Musée Léopold II will be used as a basis to offer insight into the links between colonial “science” and “policy”, which proved not to be as monolithic as often portrayed, but rather were complex amalgamations of different opinions and even conflicting interests.Keywords: Central AfricaCongo (DRC)Colonial SciencesMuseum StudiesMaterial Culture AcknowledgementsI thank Professor Donatien Muya, Director of the Musée national de Lubumbashi, for his generous hospitality. Many thanks are also due to Patrick Mudekereza and Sammy Baloji, who showed me around the city and took me to see what remains of the Musée Léopold II. Professor Johan Lagae of Ghent University kindly told me about the plans drawn up by Jozef Schellekens. Dr Sabine Cornelis gave me more information about Johan De Maegt. Dr Sarah Van Beurden was kind enough to provide me with copies of some of the archives in the Lubumbashi Museum. I also thank Peter Cooke and Peter Locke for providing me with details about the museum in Bulawayo. Baron Ludo de Vleeschauwer kindly gave me permission to study the archives of Albert de Vleeschauwer in the Katholiek Documentatie Centrum (Leuven). Pierre Dandoy and Raf Storme helped me out in the African Archives of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Henri Goldstein kindly gave me permission to use one of his photographs. Special thanks also go to my colleagues at the Colonial History and Collection Management section of the Royal Museum for Central Africa for their help with the archives, objects and illustrations. Finally, I thank Benoît Albinovanus and Moira Bluer for translating and proofreading my article. Their comments were always very useful. This article is a result of the research project “Congo in Tervuren. A History of the Human Sciences and their Representations in the Royal Museum for Central Africa (1897–2010)”, supported by Belgian Science Policy.Notes[1] Other “colonial museums” in Africa were created in Cairo (1858), Oran and Pietermaritzburg (1879), King William's Town (1884), Tunis (1888), Antananarivo (1897), Harare (1903), Kampala (1908), Maputo (1913), Livingstone (1934), Dundo (1936), Dakar (1938), Esie (1945), Jos (1952), Bamako (1953), Freetown, Porto Novo and Lagos (1957), Blantyre (1959), etc.[2] This took place a year after the actual anniversary, in 1931, because of the centenary celebrations in Belgium and competition from the world fairs in Antwerp and Liège.[3] The terms “universal” and “international” exhibition were used interchangeably until the 1930s. The International Exhibitions Bureau (BIE) was only set up in 1928 and has been operational since 1931. Clear criteria allowing a distinction to be made between international and universal exhibitions were established in 1996. No mention is made of the African Expo in Elisabethville in publications about the Paris Expo of 1931 (Hodeir and Michel Citation1991) or on the BIE's website http://www.bie-paris.org/ (accessed 21 January 2011).[4] The citations in this article that are not in their original language are the translator's own translation.[5] All monetary sums in this article have been converted according to the index and exchange rates for May 2011: http://statbel.fgov.be/en/statistics/figures/economy/consumer_price_index/indices_prix_consommation/indice_general/coefficients/. It should be noted that the Liège Water Exhibition alone cost forty-five million Belgian francs, the equivalent today of almost $40 million. Strangely enough, this debt was only paid off years later using proceeds from the Colonial Lottery, an organization set up in 1934 to fund social and humanitarian projects in the colony.[6] Viviane Baeke, Joseph Ibongo and Henry Bundjoko will shortly publish the article “L’évolution des regards sur l'art congolais au travers de la genèse des musées coloniaux et postcoloniaux à Kinshasa”, which deals with the history of the MVI.[7] The present-day Royal Museum for Central Africa was created in 1898 and was called Musée du Congo. After 1908 and the annexation by the Belgian state the name changed to Musée du Congo belge. The new museum building opened in 1910 and in 1952 the scientific institute received the designation “Royal”. The museum was given his actual name shortly after Congolese independence.[8] Before the administrative centre was moved to Léopoldville in 1923, Boma was the capital of the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo.[9] The territoire was an administrative colonial division in Congo.[10] Items collected by Burton are still held in both Tervuren and Johannesburg. A variety of objects are on display in the permanent collection in Tervuren. Burton's collections have also been shown in the Africana Museum Johannesburg (1939–1940), the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the University of Cape Town (Anonymous Citation1992), the Musée Dapper in Paris (1993–1994), the Museum for African Art in New York and the National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC (Roberts and Roberts Citation1996).[11] The document “Projet d'un Catalogue provisoire de la Section d'Ethnologie Culturelle du Musée d'Elisabethville” by Waldecker is kept in the archives of the National Museum of Lubumbashi.[12] Once again, note that this grant bears no comparison with the funding made available for the museum in the Belgian capital, which had a much larger staff and far higher operating costs. The Tervuren museum received a grant of 5,553,500 Belgian francs (over $1.3 million) in 1949 (Olbrechts 1949).[13] For an analysis of the journal Brousse, see Halen (Citation1994).[14] Fifteen million Belgian francs in 1959 would be over $3 million today.[15] The biographical information is based on the files kept in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Archives, D 655.[16] Donatien Muya and Els Cornelissen will shortly publish an article on the more recent history of the Musée national de Lubumbashi.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-09-11
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 20
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