Senegal unveils Museum of Black Civilisations
AFPPresident Macky Sall has inaugurated Senegal’s new Museum of Black Civilisations in the capital, Dakar.
It follows calls from Senegal and other African nations for France to return art it looted during the colonial era.
Among the first temporary exhibitions to be shown is work from artists from Mali and Burkina Faso as well as from Cuba and Haiti.
After decades of inaction, construction was finally made possible after a $34m (£27m) Chinese investment.
The idea of establishing the museum dates back more than 50 years, to Senegal’s late poet-president, Léopold Sédar Senghor.
Along with Martinican writer Aimé Césaire, Senghor was a creative force behind the philosophy of Négritude, which opposed the imposition of French culture on colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.
Museum of Black CivilisationsThe museum will not be a commemorative monument, its director says, but rather a creative laboratory to help shape a continent’s sense of idenтιтy.
It is expected to open to the public in the coming weeks.
Museum of Black Civilisations“This museum is a step forward for us,” Amadou Moustapha Dieng, a Senegalese arts journalist, told the BBC.
“I know there are important relics which I’m not able to see unless I go abroad, but now [with] this space, we can get back the relics and Africans can come here now and see this was their history.”
Museum of Black Civilisations
