This is a hot summer day, but I hope you have a sweater for air temperature in the second basement. Because the exhibition “Afrosonica”, currently seeing in the ethnographic museum in Geneva (Meg), takes place in an atmosphere conditioned in the air. Logically, in the end, sensitive exhibits are shown here. Nevertheless, a question arises on the stairs, whether it is a suitable place for handling the wide and diverse soundscapes of Africa. And, by the way, to think about the future of the institution, which was previously called “Etn -Cundemuzum” in many places.
For a good decade, Switzerland discussed its own interdependence in the colonial period. Even without external territories, a small country in Central Europe won from colonial trade relations. Swiss citizens also took part in campaigns, were active in the mission and management of colonies. Geneva Ethnographic Museum, founded by Anthropologist Yugen Pittard in 1901, should also face more than 70,000 objects of his own past.
In the end, the basic principle of such collections was to extract in the original place and translocation to Europe. This also applies if the circumstances seem more or less clean. Because under what conditions did the donation or purchase price appear?
Such houses as Geneva Meg are currently trying to activate the audience and exhibits. Social interaction should take the place of neutral, the contents of the self -confusion. Far from the lifeless presentation in demonstrations, to greater participation, inclusion and justice: decolonization. Only, is it possible to perform the main restructuring in existing structures, or will the sequentially decolonized ethnographic collection ultimately be those who assume themselves?
The movement “Negrites” of the 1960s
The curatorial team “Afrozoniki” around the Swiss ethnome of the musician Madlen Lekler is faced with an existential theme and does almost everything correctly. Mo Laudi was integrated as a co-biocrator, an interdisciplinary artist and DJ from South Africa, whose philosophy “Globalisto” notes the boundless hospitality-attitude of the exhibition in Geneva also would like to signal that the market as a central meeting point of the meeting.
The tactics is to make a lot of material available to ensure that neologism, such as “Afrosonic”, has no reduction, but discovery. In the end, every attempt to structure the current state of musical diversity of Africa would be doomed to failure.
Thus, we can plunge into the sound of documents, many of which were still difficult to get, from a conversational word to a religious call of channels. The exhibition convinces especially where it provides direct access. Created for the entire African continent, as well as on a global diaspora, speak for itself and does not need a lot of production.
This lyre from Sudan came to the Geneva Museum in 1979 by ethnologist Konradin Perner in 1979.
Photo:
Meg, J. Watts
The area of sitting with headphones is enough to deepen themselves into unknown songs by Miriam Makebs, female Sufi practices on the island of Mayott or in the readings of the Literary and Philosophical movement “Negritestes” of the 1960s, which is mainly actively in Western Africa. Energy passes directly through the body.
On the other hand, some technical solution still comes to the Western European, according to the cult vocation of ancestors in the middle of a high-tech coup with dynamic LED panels. It also applies to the interesting idea of bridge time and spaces.
Thus, the electro -acoustic compositions of the modern Moroccan composer Ahmed Sasida are combined in a black box with 10,000 -year -old paintings of the cave from Chad. They say that the resonant frequency stimulates the seated body through thin wood. But this seems as mechanical as a massage chair at the airport, and not a single correspondence wants to be installed between the image and sound.
Objects fall into a museum deep sleep?
The connection seems too intermediary and distant. “Afrosonica” wants to show something very lively, and also shows this, for example, in a video from Piropian parties on Mahraganate Street in Cairo or from the sample of the Sarbati Hercule brigade in the Kinshas Congolese Megopolis, which develops ecstatic.
Part of the planning “Afrozoniki” was concerned about what was happening with exhibits in the European archives and collection warehouses. Things fall into a kind of museum deep sleep? Thus, you can increase better, but in your use there is a non -wiped way of care. Thus, two orders were made at the listening stations: the Japanese composer Midori Takada brought stored rats, clamps and gongs, the great sound artist KMRU from Nairobi, who survived parts of the archive in the house with folk absorption.
New prospects are also taken from the point of view of the conservatory, for example, at Kalumba, which will be played with a thumb. In front you have traces of use, while the inventory data are listed. Then it is said, for example: “Belgish-Kokgo, No. 008812.” Therefore, the object speaks on both sides, of which only one is shown.
It is interesting to watch how the museum thinks about itself. As in the exhibition catalog, for example, in the exhibition catalog, they are always in demand among relatives of the communities of indigenous peoples: for you this is normal, how do we plan it? Can you do it like that? This process is far from ending.
The display of the intermediate status of the thinking process and the insertion of long marginal sound art into the focus is the performance of “Afrosonica Soundscape”. Therefore, the exhibition in Geneva is worth a trip, you must make a stop on the way to France. But please take something to cover with you.