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MuseumFutures


MuseumFutures Africa is a people-centered cultural project focussed on museums. It began with a focus on Africa, and expanded its reach to museums across the Global South, with the intention to test, explore and study potentials for new formats of Southern museology.

● Home
● About
● Contact
● Study Groups
 ○ Arna Jharna Thar Desert Museum
○ The Conflictorium
○ Mutare Museum
○ MajiMaji Museum
○ Acervo de Laje
○ Museu Mafalala
○ Exchanges 2023
○ Musée National de Guinée
○ National Museums of Kenya
○ Steve Biko Centre
○ Uganda Museum
○ Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art
○ Musée Théodore Monod
○ Exchanges 2021-2
● Resources
○ Towards a depiction of ... the experimental / colonial museum
○ Dialogues
○ MFA publication 2022
○ Curriculum 2023
○ Curriculum 2021
○ Notes toward a proposal


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MuseumFutures is supported by the     Goethe-Institut

Study Groups


Museum Futures Southern Museology’s aimed to nurture an imaginative collective process driven by 6 different museums in Africa, India and Brazil. Scroll down or use the menu for an overview of each museum, some of their core institutional concerns, their study groups, and a custom illustration by Kampala-based artist Charity Atukunda.

2021 - 2022 TRAVEL EXCHANGES



In 2021 - 2022, the 6 alumni museums also conducted exchange trips between Senegal and Nigeria (Theodor Monod and YSMA), between Guinee and Kenya (Musee Guinee and NMK) and between Uganda and South Africa (Uganda Museum and the Steve Biko Centre). These visits often crossed linguistic barriers and required considerable planning and co-ordination from local teams. Complex geopolitics also ensures that ironically travelling between African countries is often much more complicated, expensive and difficult than between Africa and the Global North. This is exactly why such exchanges are crucial.

As a small taste of the qualitative impact of such exchanges, we share a personal account and a free flow of thoughts on travel from Gilbert Ouma,a member of the National Museums of Kenya study group, who travelled from Nairobi, Kenya to Conakry, Guinee in 2021 as part of the museum exchange. This is an excerpt from an unbridled and poetic response to the question: why travel?

“One thing I appreciate about this exchange is our differences. Huku dereva anakaa left. Niliingiya left side jamaa akashangaa nataka endesha gari yake. Things are laid back here. Parts of the city look like mazeras/mkindani as you get to Mombasa, parts of it are like Kibera and Rongai Iko mbele. You can compare it to rongai ya 15 years ago maybe. The city streets are kinda dark at night. And the vehicles are very old and few are new. Mbeba spins a new Audi though. (…)

[Guinee] is the first African country to kick out the French and sadly the last. They have a few Chinese and like everyone, people eye them with suspicion. On the flight there was a Lebanese guy coming to help their uncle. Boubacar says most of the foreigners are Indian and Lebanese coming as traders. Their airport is like you see on YouTube. It's very basic. It had some basic murals. It's like the lodwar airstrip. Guinea has a lot to look forward to in terms of development but I hope their museum would take advantage of the times and collect whatever they are using now for in the next fifty years am sure this place will be different.”
A celebratory dinner in Nairobi. Abdoulay Sy from Dakar and Michael Oseghale from Lagos share a meal and a laugh. Gilbert and Philip experiencing good things in Guinee Members of the NMK team with their hosts in Guinee Members of the Uganda Museum study group marking the moment at the Steve Biko Centre, Ginsberg, South Africa Musee Guinee study group members enjoy a meal with their hosts in Nairobi Three members from the YSMA in Nigeria outside the Theodor Monod museum in Dakar! View from a travellers eyes - a busy Kampala street taken by a member of the Steve Biko Centre study group during the exchange visit to Uganda.