Lara: Friday, June 16

Friday's meeting with Dr. Zuberi in archives gave me a greater sense of the direction of the curatorial mission of the project. Understanding his vision as oriented around the provenance of the objects and the stories engrained in the history of their collection by various persons and dealers reminded me of an exhibition concept I had been introduced to by a former internship supervisor, Paul Davis. 

 His project ReCollecting Dogon seems to me to parallel Dr. Zuberi's vision of highlighting the ways the Western gaze and associated collecting practices by European and American actors has affected the long-term museological interpretation and perception of African peoples. The effort of the exhibit ReCollecting Dogon "strives to destabilize the authority of ethnographic display" of Dogon material culture and highlighting the collection as a result of "how people in Europe and America perceived and valued objects than the artistic practices of people on living on the continent and how they change." 

I highly suggest investigating the online materials that have been created in association with the project: https://www.menil.org/read/online-features/recollecting-dogon. This online feature not only presents an introduction to the collection material, its acquisition history, and the history of interpreting this material, but it presents the historical and contemporary utilization of this objects within the context of the Dogon region, especially the ways in which the current tourist industry has affected the distribution and utilization of objects like masks and their associated performances.

I think ReCollecting Dogon offers an invaluable resource from which to pull inspiration regarding the future curation and contextualization of our own material, even if the material itself is not the same as presented in ReCollecting Dogon. I also find it heartening to see that projects highlighting the role of provenance in our current understanding of material culture is catching fire, and finding a place in contemporary art historical, anthropological and archaeological discourse.


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