Isabella: WAWA Festival Visitor Evaluations

On Friday, the museum was overflowing with visitors and I was so happy to see how many people were visiting the African galleries. I was able to talk to so many different visitors, from different cultural backgrounds, age, and interests, and I was able to become extremely comfortable in my interviewing. I also realized that it was much more easy for people to say no to an interview when they're not the only ones in the hallway. In any case, it was a great experience to see the Penn Museum on a busy day and to see people taking the time to carefully look at each object in the collection. 

One major improvement from this round of interviews was the question, "Do you consider Africa as being very connected with the rest of the world? If yes, how and if not, why not?" This question, instead of confusing the visitor, actually elicited a wide variety of interesting answers. Many people said yes, citing Africa as the cradle of humanity. One man I spoke to who was of African descent said, "Without Africa, there would be no us."  I understand how incredibly dangerous it is to have Africa seen as a monolithic beginning for human history as it erases the long history of African innovation, posing Africa as step 1 and Europe/America as the finishing line (to paraphrase Monique). However, I also see how the "birthplace of humanity" narrative can be empowering for people as well. I am very curious how it will be carefully approached in the future exhibition.

This question also had other people answering yes, Africa is connected to the world, but mentioned colonization and economic exploitation as the different ways Africa was connected. A good deal of people said, "No, Africa is not connected to the rest of the world." Some said that this disconnection was unfortunate and a result of racism, other people stated it as a fact of life and followed the narrative that Africa was mainly jungle and didn't have the technology to be connected. One white man I spoke to plainly said that when he think of Africa, he thinks of people butchering each other, like in the Rwandan genocide and Apartheid. It disappoints me to think that he is an exhibition filled with different stories of African cultures and that remains his take-away (not that one exhibit could take away the onslaught of negative images Americans are constantly exposed to). I am interested in sitting down and analyzing all of these response and creating guidelines for what narrative the future exhibit will tell.