New Africa Hub confronts colonial-era silences by asking visitors to share insights on 40,000 objects
It’s a rare thing for a museum to talk about what it doesn’t know. But unanswered questions and archival silences are at the heart of the new Africa Hub at Manchester Museum, north-west England, which is inviting people around the world to help fill the gaps.
The museum holds more than 40,000 items from across Africa, many of which were traded, collected, looted or preserved during the era of the British empire.
As a result, the names of makers, the cultural significance of objects and the people to which they once belonged are largely unknown to curators in Manchester; in many cases, only the name of the donor or the collection from which an item came is recorded.
The new Africa Hub will display “beautifully crafted” items that have been in storage for years, the museum says.
