Banataba
04 May 2018 - 07 May 2018
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Musée Royal de l'Afrique centrale - 13, Leuvensesteenweg 13, 3080
Somewhere in the storerooms of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, a wooden
Lengola statuette, deemed to be without value by conservators, takes the Congolese
Faustin Linyekula on a journey back to his ancestral village of Banataba. The trip is
a symbolic return. It examines the history of this sculpture, removed from its original
context during colonisation, with Linyekula’s own trajectory. How can the complex
puzzle of his country – now the Democratic Republic of Congo – be put back together
when the pieces are scattered all over the West and its major museums? For the
Kunstenfestivaldesarts Linyekula takes over the Royal Museum for Central Africa
in Tervuren, still closed for renovations. In the empty wing of the new building
alongside the dancer Moya Michael, he tells of this return journey and questions
through words and movement the role of the museum as a witness of the dispersal
of heritage from other countries. A fiery duet that calls for history to continually be
rewritten in the present.
Lengola statuette, deemed to be without value by conservators, takes the Congolese
Faustin Linyekula on a journey back to his ancestral village of Banataba. The trip is
a symbolic return. It examines the history of this sculpture, removed from its original
context during colonisation, with Linyekula’s own trajectory. How can the complex
puzzle of his country – now the Democratic Republic of Congo – be put back together
when the pieces are scattered all over the West and its major museums? For the
Kunstenfestivaldesarts Linyekula takes over the Royal Museum for Central Africa
in Tervuren, still closed for renovations. In the empty wing of the new building
alongside the dancer Moya Michael, he tells of this return journey and questions
through words and movement the role of the museum as a witness of the dispersal
of heritage from other countries. A fiery duet that calls for history to continually be
rewritten in the present.
Musée Royal de l'Afrique centrale
13, Leuvensesteenweg 13, 3080
MUSEUM CLOSED FOR RENOVATION FROM 30 NOVEMBER 2013 AND DURING 3YEARS -- A federally-owned institution and respected scientific research centre...
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