Displaying Traditional Yorùbá Religious Objects in Museums: The Western Re-Making of a Cultural Heritage
Catalani, Anna
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/3786
Description
Title
Displaying Traditional Yorùbá Religious Objects in Museums: The Western Re-Making of a Cultural Heritage
Author(s)
Catalani, Anna
Issue Date
2007
Keyword(s)
Cultural heritage preservation
Museums
Abstract
This paper, based on doctoral research carried out from January 2003
through July 2005, addresses the interpretation and representation
of non-Western religious material culture in Western museums and
offers a comprehensive view of the way traditional religious Yorùbá
objects are displayed in contemporary museums in Britain. Museum
exhibitions can be conceived as a visual narrative, which absorbs the
religious essence of traditional religious non-Western objects into
broad categories. At the same time, these categories are still strongly
affected by Western aesthetic appreciation, understanding, and classificatory
systems. In museum displays, traditional Yorùbá religious
material culture loses its distinctiveness and is absorbed into global
pan-African representations. Therefore, in order to be able to reach
more informed or “authentic” interpretations, museums should include
the memories and voices of the people who are “closer” to the
original meanings of traditional religious objects.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ISSN
0024-2594
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/3786
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Copyright 2007 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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