Queen Mother Pendant Mask
Eventual Return to Nigeria!
Located in Benin, one of the regions of Nigeria, is a new museum, so new it is barely begun. This will be the Edo Museum of West African Art. At one time, before 1897, it had an amazing number of people who owed allegiance to Benin Kingdom.
The person in charge is David Adjaye. He is called a “starchitect” because he has won fame as the designer of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
This museum in Washington is famous. My friend Judy Hamer has belongings there. I will have to look up what is there. (Judy, you can remind me!) Another friend was just in Washington and visited the Museum, but could only spend 4 hours there. He knows hde is going back. I still have not been!
Recently the German minister of culture has announced plans to send back to Nigeria hundreds of art objects. He is currently awaiting the result of the museum, which could take five years, so no rush!
Leopard head
Even more important are the objects in the British Museum. That collection reaches 700 items! Some would love to see those returned.
These items came from Benin which was the center of the artistic world in West Africa. They were taken in 1897. But the Germans were not in Benin, so one can assume the objects were sold on the international art market. They were then donated to the German museum.
Today only 50 pieces remain in Nigeria!
Calls for the return of art acquired by Western countries during the colonial period is an old song. Some countries, especially where national identity is weak, see the return of art as a dimension of nation-building. Other cases are more narrowly a matter of principle. Since the nineteenth century, the Greeks have agitated for the British return of the Parthenon sculptures (the “Elgin Marbles”). This perspective takes for granted that the art produced in a particular locale uniquely belongs to the people who live there now, hence the importance of its physical repatriation.
Benin art
But today another perspective is that art belongs to everyone. What matters is the art’s accessibility, not its current location. It should reside where it is open to all.
Quartz Africa
You might skip the three companies if you don’t wish to read about new funding. But these three are all worthy!
Three pieces in Quartz Africa deserve our attention. One is Chekkit, a counterfeiting firm. Chekkit says it is based in Yaba, part of Lagos.
What will it do with $500,000? It will “enable us to directly protect up to 100 million lives from counterfeit products by giving everyone the ability to identify and only buy original products, report the fake ones they come across, and get rewarded for doing so.”
The second one is Uber. The company uses the finance partner in Africa called Moove, which found the new funding.
The reporter talks about “the implications of Moove’s recent $23 million financing round, which it will devote to continental expansion, building on its current pilot in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa.”
Is this a move by Uber to use its own fleet? Or is it an expansion of getting cars to people? We’ll have to wait to see.
The third is Zowasel, a Nigerian agri-tech startup.
The company has received $100,000 equity-free financing from Guinness Nigeria and Promasidor Nigeria.
This was part of the UN World Food Program’s “Zero Hunger Sprint.” In its bid “to end hunger by 2030, the initiative funds disruptive innovations whose operations are at the intersection of smallholder farmers, communities, people, and networks, for seamless and accessible agricultural trade.”
These are all worthy. I hope to see more about them later!
