The Congo Collection at the Museum of Cultural History
The collection referred to here as the Congo Collection is a part of the Museum of Cultural History’s ethnographic collections. The objects in the Congo Collection come from areas that were then referred to as Congo when they were collected, but which today cover large parts of Central Africa. This large area now includes, among others, the Republic of Congo/Kongo-Brazzaville, and the Democratic Republic of Congo/Kongo-Kinshasa, both established in 1960 when France and Belgium abolished their former colonies. The Republic of Congo was from 1880-1908 French Congo and then part of French Equatorial Africa from 1910-1960 along with Chad, Gabon, and the Central African Republic. The Democratic Republic of Congo was from 1884-1908 the Congo Free State and ruled by King Leopold II of Belgium, and then Belgian Congo until 1960. When the collection is now referred to as the Congo Collection, it means that the objects often come from areas within this entire large Central African region, which today constitutes of many different nation-states.
The collection is primarily a cultural historical collection. It has largely come through donations from the many Norwegian men, as well as a few women, who served in Congo for the Belgian and French colonial administration or as business travelers, sailors, missionaries, and later as aid workers, diplomats, or also researchers in the field of anthropology. The collection also contains ethnographic material collected through more recent anthropological fieldwork, which opens for further work within research and dissemination. In this way, the collection is constantly growing.
The Congo Collection at the Museum of Cultural History contains objects within different categories that encompass both every day and ritual life. The collection covers an extensive geographic and cultural area in the central part of the African continent. Aiming to make the Museum of Cultural History's ethnographic collection more accessible to a diverse audience, the museum creates limited portals where we showcase objects from the museum’s storage. Through the portals, the museum can digitally display objects along with those presented in the museum's exhibitions. By making the ethnographic collections available to the public, the Museum of Cultural History aims to facilitate collaborations to both expand and develop a more comprehensive understanding of the objects, as well as the societies and cultural contexts in which they were produced and were a part of.
Objects with human-like features - how to make a selection
Given that the criteria for the selection of objects displayed in this portal is that they should be anthropomorphic, figures or tools with human-like features from different regions are shown. In addition, all the objects shown have had a practical function, such as a chair to sit on, a comb to comb one's hair, a hat, or a ladle. The Congo Collection is a historical collection, and many of the objects are poorly documented regarding their original production location and their intended purpose and design. The documentation in the portal is based on the museum's own catalog and archive material, as well as expertise in ethnography from Central Africa, to provide further information about where the selected objects may have come from and what significance and function, they were originally attributed. The documentation work was done through research in museum catalogs, collections from other museums, and existing research on the objects. Some of the objects were difficult to find information about, while others were well-documented through research literature and curator work, which is reflected in the object texts.
This portal should be regarded as the beginning of what will eventually become a larger presentation of the museum's objects from Congo.
Literature:
Vogel, Susan. 1989. "Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory" in African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 84-89+104.
MacGaffey, Wyatt. 1988. "Complexity, Astonishment and Power: The Visual Vocabulary of Kongo Minkisi" in Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 188-203.
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