Conference paper, Friday, October 19th, 2007, 2:45 p.m.

Note: This text is a background text accompanying a power point presentation not a conference text.

Koeki Claessens: The Royal Museum for Central Africa: From Colonial Museum to International Reference Institute for Central Africa

Introduction

‘The Royal Museum for Central Africa: From Colonial museum to international Reference Institute for Central Africa’ is the title of the talk and at the same time the challenge the museum wants to realize in the coming years.
Although the transformation process is still going on, some important steps have been taken so far. I would like to give an overview of these various steps in the fundamental transformation process and the plan for renovation of the museum into a modern and dynamic Africa museum.
For this institution, which is simultaneously a Museum, Research Institute, and Centre of Information Dissemination and raising public awareness, a mere change of décor is not sufficient: a fundamental shift in vision, a series of risks, and especially a move towards dialogue and transparency are part of the process.

History of the museum

The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) was founded in 1898 at the initiative of King Leopold II as the ‘Musée du Congo’. It originated from a very successful temporary exhibition (more than 1.2 million visitors) organized at his initiative and presented in 1897 as the Colonial Section of the Brussels World Fair. “The exhibition’s aims were as much propagandist as they were commercial: the Belgians were to be convinced of the economic possibilities in the Congo and of the good to be done in civilizing and developing this region. The effect of this exhibition, which displayed the most investment-attracting export products surrounded by an array of ethnographic objects and animals prepared by taxidermists, in addition to the reconstituted Congolese villages, with real Congolese villagers on site, in the surrounding park area, was that scientific interest in the region was greatly aroused. It was thus that the dual function of the museum was born: an exhibition and research institute, one of the many legacies that have remained until today.”
As the research interest increased, the collections grew rapidly. Soon it became clear that the exhibition halls would be too small for the collections and research. Subsequently King Leopold II decided to construct a new building to house it. Construction works started in 1904 and the new museum, ‘Musée du Congo Belge’, opened in 1910. It is located midst beautiful landscaped gardens. In 1908, Congo had become formally a Belgian colony. The RMCA was put under the auspices of the Ministry of Colonies and served as a promotional tool for Belgian colonial activities. The rapidly growing collections served as a basis for multidisciplinary scientific research. In 1960, Congo became independent and the museum changed his name to ‘Royal Museum for Central Africa’.

Institution

General: Federal scientific institution
The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) in Tervuren, Belgium, is a federal scientific institute and is often referred to as one of the last colonial museums in the world.
The RMCA houses the most important collections on Central Africa in the world, both in number and in quality, and it has a long tradition of research in the natural and earth sciences as well as in the humanities and social sciences. It has a triple function as a museum, as a research institute, and as a centre for information dissemination and raising public awareness about Africa. Furthermore, it has a long tradition of partnerships with institutions in well over 20 African countries and other research institutes and museums around the world. Through its educational and cultural activities and through its exhibitions, the museum also encourages the interest of the public at large in the natural and cultural diversity of Africa, its people, its societies, and its environments.

Some statistics

Transformation process

Let me now come to the transformation process of this ‘colonial museum’ towards an international reference institute for Central Africa.
It was clear that the unique combination of disciplines, expertise, collections, partnerships, would be maintained and accentuated in the vision for the future, giving the RMCA the potential to become the reference institute for past and present societies and cultures and natural environments of Africa, and Central Africa in particular.

So how does one actually go about instituting change in such an institution?

Mission statement

The first step was to formulate a mission statement of the institution. This was a fascinating participatory process of working with representatives from each of the research departments and various public-oriented and technical services within the museum. This resulted in a set of priorities for the institution. A proposal was discussed with the Governance Bodies of the RMCA, as well as external experts and stakeholders. The resulting version was then proposed to the 275-member staff of the institution on two subsequent occasions. The final version was as follows:

The Royal Museum for Central Africa must be a world centre in research and knowledge dissemination on past and present societies and natural environments of Africa, and in particular Central Africa, to foster–to the public at large and the scientific community–a better understanding and interest in this area and, through partnerships, to substantially contribute to its sustainable development.

Implications mission statement

This mission statement, albeit just one sentence, had great implications for the reform process of the institution. In short it meant that the RMCA would have to extend its critical mass of scientific research by creating partnerships with other institutions around the world. It meant potentially streamlining existing research and developing new research domains as well as a totally new approach to represent present-day Africa in all of its facets. It meant that the public services would have to be reformed so as to properly convey knowledge on Central Africa to the public at large, and this, for example, by working directly with the African communities and diasporas. And finally, it meant contributing its expertise to development cooperation projects to build national capacities and contribute to sustainable development in Central Africa, which implies interdisciplinary approaches.

Rebranding

The most prominent immediately visible outcome of this re-branding process was the development of a new museum logo. The previous logo comprised an image of the main building of the museum. Although the building is inextricably linked to the RMCA and its past, and will always be, it was not necessarily what should come to symbolise the institution. Developing a new museum logo was again a process of institution-wide reflection at times very difficult. It had to render simple the complexity of the triple function of the museum, transcend the language barrier (Belgium having four official languages, and thus four official names for the museum!), and find a simple word or image that would not mislead visitors to thinking that the museum was only an ethnographic museum or only a natural science museum. Of course an image of the museum building would have been an easy option, but as we were looking for renewal, looking to become a museum for and of Africa, a logo that expressed a ‘mirroring’ of ‘Africa’ was chosen, with simply the word ‘Africa’ straight up and joined upside down and with the word Tervuren underneath. The logo reflected the museum’s spirit of change and openness to African communities, and its dual role as a museum and a research institute.

Awareness raising and dialogue

One of the RMCA’s aims is to encourage the general public to take a greater interest in Africa and in the diversity of people, societies, cultures and environments. In doing so, the Museum plays its own unique role in combating racism and cultural intolerance. The Museum is also a meeting place where people share experiences, where intercultural dialogue is promoted, where children of mixed cultural origins can find the tools to construct their own identity and where people in general are stimulated to come to terms with the past and to become responsible civilians in a world of globalization In order to take on fully this societal role of the museum and to become a forum for dialogue, a place of contact between peoples and cultures, especially for African communities to voice themselves, several initiatives were taken.

Collaboration with diaspora

Comité consultative MRAC – Associations Africaines (Comraf) A working group was set up with representatives of many of the African associations in Belgium. This group, after a first phase of dialogue, developed into a smaller advisory committee, whereby the nominated representatives meet regularly with representatives of the public services and research sections of the museum.

A new project is just started READ-ME, ‘Réseau européen des Associations de Diasporas & musées ethnographiques‘, on European level whereby 5 Ethnographical musea (Musée du Quai Branly, Etnografiska Museet Stockholm, Museo etnografico Luigi Pigorini Rome, The Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Musée du masque of Binche) will work very closely together with the respective diasporas in order to reflect on how to integrate the source communities within the museographical environment.

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