In the first few weeks of Hazina, the exhibition marking the British Museum's (BM) partnership with the National Museums of Kenya (NMK), the East African Community (EAC) agreed to expand its own partnership. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania currently make up the EAC enabling closer political, economic and cultural links and now Rwanda and Burundi will join them.
Which is fitting given that Hazina: Traditions, Trade and Transitions in East Africa aims to link that East African community through past contacts up and down the coast of the Indian Ocean, including Zanzibar, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Somalia.
Hazina, which means treasures in Swahili, opened on 30 March. It is the result of a long-running relationship between the NMK and the BM forged by John Mack, previously the keeper of ethnography at the BM (full story Museums Journal March 2005, p29). It was his vision that enabled 140 objects to travel for the first time from Britain to the African continent.
An additional 20 objects were sourced from the NMK's collection. The exhibition, the first part of the larger Africa Project initiative, has been funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), with £500,000 matched in kind by the British Council. Hazina is being seen as a test case. If it works well there will be similar projects in more African countries.
The money enabled Kiprop Lagat, the curator of ethnography at the NMK and the curator of the Hazina exhibition, to come to England to the BM to choose the objects for the show. And the research has become the subject of his masters degree (under the pupilage of Mack, now the professor of world art studies at the University of East Anglia). The money also helped some NMK staff to train at the British Museum, including the exhibition designer, the education officer and the publicity manager.
Because the main museum in Nairobi is undergoing a £8m redevelopment funded in part with £5.4m from the European Union, Hazina is displayed in a downtown building renamed the Nairobi Gallery. The building is relatively small but is more centrally located than the main museum. But the new site has attracted criticism from some Nairobians because of its colonial origins.
The renovation of the building was completed last year and it then was made secure and the correct light and humidity levels were created. Julie Hudson, a curator in the department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the BM, was in Nairobi in the weeks leading up to the exhibition opening to offer 'advice, support and guidance where needed' to Lagat.
Hudson is careful to set out the BM's position as an enabler rather than a provider: 'Sustainability was the focus. It was not about the BM providing a loan exhibition. It is enabling people to support themselves.'
Hudson says the ability of the two museums to work together was based largely on trust. Lagat and Hudson became the contact points for the concerns and opinions of their respective colleagues. The pair would enter into discussions to iron out any differences of opinion or misunderstandings.
For example one differing viewpoint was around text, font size and labelling. Lagat recalls: 'For us [at the NMK] it depends on the curator as to what graphics are used.' He continues: 'The BM has a well-drawn up policy on these things. We had to reach compromises.'
There were also areas where the BM learned from the NMK. 'We made rather more assumptions of people's understanding of how objects are presented,' says Hudson. 'It is something we have to be aware of at the BM.'
Hudson says the Nairobi team were very aware of the different cultural backgrounds that may need accommodating (there are more than 50 ethnic groups in Kenya, and most are represented in the capital city, not to mention tourists). They did this by introducing questions in the text and focusing on the objects rather than themes, says Hudson. There was also an effort to make the numbering in cases extremely clear.
Hazina is split into four areas, trade and exchange; wellbeing; leadership; and contemporary art. The team selected a star object in each display case where the label was flagged up - for those with limited time or attention spans, according to Hudson.
If sustainability was one of the aims of the partnership, it has been a success. 'This exhibition is made in Kenya - the materials have been produced and sourced in Kenya,' Hudson says.
There was some worry about whether fabrics from the region would be appropriate to be used inside the cases. Hudson says it was far from straightforward because many of the materials they wanted had different names in Kenya. They found alternatives from a local market and tested their suitability at the BM. Now, says Hudson, a range of fabrics can be used in Kenyan museums. And, she adds, Kenya is in a position to offer these services to other East African countries.
Hazina may be on for only six months (until the end of September) but it has already caused quite a stir in Nairobi and beyond, not least because of the inevitable restitution issue but also because of the excitement and response from visitors, particularly Kenyans.
The majority of the NMK's 300,000 yearly visitors are organised school groups. It is a trend that is likely to follow at the Nairobi Gallery. There was a healthy number of entries in the comments book (many calling for the return of the objects) and in three weeks that I was in Kenya the gallery was never empty when I visited - but it wasn't full by any means. There were to be renewed efforts to step up publicity and with two late-night openings it was hoped the situation would improve.
Idle Omar Farah, the director-general of the NMK, echoed many people's hopes of what the exhibition will create: 'It will stir the younger generation of Kenyans to have a picture of how things were managed before we got influenced by the rest of the world.' Farah believes that that is partly the story the exhibition tells.
Indeed one young Kenyan man I spoke to in the gallery said he 'wanted to learn more about the traditions of his people'. There was excitement among the security guards outside the building, voicing their pride at seeing the objects and the memories they bring about periods in history they were taught at school.
'A Somalian man living in Nairobi believed the interpretation was incorrect in one section. He said the headrests from Somalia, whose label read 'the extensive interlace patterning suggests Islamic influence', were pre-Islamic. But he was happy they were on show.
There was also a consensus among the visitors I spoke to that the interpretation should have been in Swahili as well as English. Quite cleverly, Lagat commissioned scholars from around the world to research a number of objects, and their findings became the accompanying catalogue to the exhibition. The introduction to each section of the catalogue is in both Swahili and English but strangely the object research is only in English.
One visitor also wanted a suggestions box - at the moment the education room is intended to be used as a kind of hothouse of ideas - with public and school group sessions. It will feedback into the NMK's development.
But Farah was under no illusions that the biggest talk around Hazina would be restitution. And he expects demonstrations by the pro-return lobby outside the gallery. Almost every press report on Hazina in Kenya's two national newspapers, the Daily Nation and the Standard, concentrated on restitution.
Farah told me that at the first press launch in February the minister of national heritage said words to the effect that he viewed the cultural objects as of universal importance wherever they were kept but they should be accessible to everyone everywhere in the world. The Daily Nation ran a piece saying that the minister was wrong not to pursue 'our cultural objects'. And that was to be the tone of subsequent articles.
Artists' chat rooms were ablaze with comment and at times disgust at the situation. Jimmy Ogonga, artist and projects director at the visual art news information and archive AfricanColours, said: 'How can someone loan us ourselves?'
Claude Ardouin, a Malian, is the head of the African Section at the BM. He disagrees: 'We need a shift from the passionate and sometimes uninformed debate, to one of partnership.' And he adds that the debate had done more harm than good. 'There is a lot of misinterpretation and misinformation. The objects in Hazina are not the result of any fight. These objects are not stolen.'
But the BM has said that one result of Hazina is that it has learned more about the objects and how they were used. Perhaps there is also more to know about how these objects were acquired.
During my visit, the Kenyan people were preparing to receive back two Vigango (also called Kigango) or grave markers which had been looted from the country and found in the Illinois State Museum, Springfield, US. They were part of a 20-year organised theft and there are believed to be hundreds of Vigango scattered around the States.
The drought that has taken hold in Kenya (mainly the north but with effects on the rest of Kenya) has been explained by some groups as a sign of annoyance by the ancestors because of their missing grave markers. The provenance of the Vigango may be clear, but if there ever was a rock solid reason for the return of objects, spiritual significance must be it.
Elizabeth Ouma, the coordinator of the VVOB-NMK Interactive Public Programmes Project, is unusual, not for her stance that the Hazina objects should remain in the UK but for her reasons why. Ouma says rather passionately: 'Why should they stay? These objects were collected during the colonial era. They tell that story. They do not tell the story of African culture.'
Ouma is part of a team charged with discovering what makes an African museum. The answers will feed into the new NMK galleries, with the first phase to be completed at the end of 2007. Hopefully the team will look at the Kisumu Museum in western Kenya. It is the only impressive model of intangible heritage among the NMK's 17 museums.
It has recreated a Luo (an ethnic group) village scene, using interactives to bring alive the story of family life. It is a breath of fresh air after the static displays in the NMK's museums, which have led questions as to how exactly the objects behind the glass were used.
The DCMS has already deemed Hazina a success and has promised an additional £75,000 for this financial year for the continuation of the Africa project. There is talk of a Ghana gold project in time for Ghana's 50th anniversary of independence next year.
It seems a shame that Hazina, which tells the story of various East African partnerships, will not have the chance to travel to neighbouring countries, or to come to the UK.
As Farah says, the lasting legacy of this collaboration has been that the NMK can now ask for objects to come back and forth and on longer loan. And it can negotiate loans with other countries: 'Tomorrow I can sit down with museums in the US or Germany because we already have a precedent.'
Which is fitting given that Hazina: Traditions, Trade and Transitions in East Africa aims to link that East African community through past contacts up and down the coast of the Indian Ocean, including Zanzibar, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Somalia.
Hazina, which means treasures in Swahili, opened on 30 March. It is the result of a long-running relationship between the NMK and the BM forged by John Mack, previously the keeper of ethnography at the BM (full story Museums Journal March 2005, p29). It was his vision that enabled 140 objects to travel for the first time from Britain to the African continent.
An additional 20 objects were sourced from the NMK's collection. The exhibition, the first part of the larger Africa Project initiative, has been funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), with £500,000 matched in kind by the British Council. Hazina is being seen as a test case. If it works well there will be similar projects in more African countries.
The money enabled Kiprop Lagat, the curator of ethnography at the NMK and the curator of the Hazina exhibition, to come to England to the BM to choose the objects for the show. And the research has become the subject of his masters degree (under the pupilage of Mack, now the professor of world art studies at the University of East Anglia). The money also helped some NMK staff to train at the British Museum, including the exhibition designer, the education officer and the publicity manager.
Because the main museum in Nairobi is undergoing a £8m redevelopment funded in part with £5.4m from the European Union, Hazina is displayed in a downtown building renamed the Nairobi Gallery. The building is relatively small but is more centrally located than the main museum. But the new site has attracted criticism from some Nairobians because of its colonial origins.
The renovation of the building was completed last year and it then was made secure and the correct light and humidity levels were created. Julie Hudson, a curator in the department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the BM, was in Nairobi in the weeks leading up to the exhibition opening to offer 'advice, support and guidance where needed' to Lagat.
Hudson is careful to set out the BM's position as an enabler rather than a provider: 'Sustainability was the focus. It was not about the BM providing a loan exhibition. It is enabling people to support themselves.'
Hudson says the ability of the two museums to work together was based largely on trust. Lagat and Hudson became the contact points for the concerns and opinions of their respective colleagues. The pair would enter into discussions to iron out any differences of opinion or misunderstandings.
For example one differing viewpoint was around text, font size and labelling. Lagat recalls: 'For us [at the NMK] it depends on the curator as to what graphics are used.' He continues: 'The BM has a well-drawn up policy on these things. We had to reach compromises.'
There were also areas where the BM learned from the NMK. 'We made rather more assumptions of people's understanding of how objects are presented,' says Hudson. 'It is something we have to be aware of at the BM.'
Hudson says the Nairobi team were very aware of the different cultural backgrounds that may need accommodating (there are more than 50 ethnic groups in Kenya, and most are represented in the capital city, not to mention tourists). They did this by introducing questions in the text and focusing on the objects rather than themes, says Hudson. There was also an effort to make the numbering in cases extremely clear.
Hazina is split into four areas, trade and exchange; wellbeing; leadership; and contemporary art. The team selected a star object in each display case where the label was flagged up - for those with limited time or attention spans, according to Hudson.
If sustainability was one of the aims of the partnership, it has been a success. 'This exhibition is made in Kenya - the materials have been produced and sourced in Kenya,' Hudson says.
There was some worry about whether fabrics from the region would be appropriate to be used inside the cases. Hudson says it was far from straightforward because many of the materials they wanted had different names in Kenya. They found alternatives from a local market and tested their suitability at the BM. Now, says Hudson, a range of fabrics can be used in Kenyan museums. And, she adds, Kenya is in a position to offer these services to other East African countries.
Hazina may be on for only six months (until the end of September) but it has already caused quite a stir in Nairobi and beyond, not least because of the inevitable restitution issue but also because of the excitement and response from visitors, particularly Kenyans.
The majority of the NMK's 300,000 yearly visitors are organised school groups. It is a trend that is likely to follow at the Nairobi Gallery. There was a healthy number of entries in the comments book (many calling for the return of the objects) and in three weeks that I was in Kenya the gallery was never empty when I visited - but it wasn't full by any means. There were to be renewed efforts to step up publicity and with two late-night openings it was hoped the situation would improve.
Idle Omar Farah, the director-general of the NMK, echoed many people's hopes of what the exhibition will create: 'It will stir the younger generation of Kenyans to have a picture of how things were managed before we got influenced by the rest of the world.' Farah believes that that is partly the story the exhibition tells.
Indeed one young Kenyan man I spoke to in the gallery said he 'wanted to learn more about the traditions of his people'. There was excitement among the security guards outside the building, voicing their pride at seeing the objects and the memories they bring about periods in history they were taught at school.
'A Somalian man living in Nairobi believed the interpretation was incorrect in one section. He said the headrests from Somalia, whose label read 'the extensive interlace patterning suggests Islamic influence', were pre-Islamic. But he was happy they were on show.
There was also a consensus among the visitors I spoke to that the interpretation should have been in Swahili as well as English. Quite cleverly, Lagat commissioned scholars from around the world to research a number of objects, and their findings became the accompanying catalogue to the exhibition. The introduction to each section of the catalogue is in both Swahili and English but strangely the object research is only in English.
One visitor also wanted a suggestions box - at the moment the education room is intended to be used as a kind of hothouse of ideas - with public and school group sessions. It will feedback into the NMK's development.
But Farah was under no illusions that the biggest talk around Hazina would be restitution. And he expects demonstrations by the pro-return lobby outside the gallery. Almost every press report on Hazina in Kenya's two national newspapers, the Daily Nation and the Standard, concentrated on restitution.
Farah told me that at the first press launch in February the minister of national heritage said words to the effect that he viewed the cultural objects as of universal importance wherever they were kept but they should be accessible to everyone everywhere in the world. The Daily Nation ran a piece saying that the minister was wrong not to pursue 'our cultural objects'. And that was to be the tone of subsequent articles.
Artists' chat rooms were ablaze with comment and at times disgust at the situation. Jimmy Ogonga, artist and projects director at the visual art news information and archive AfricanColours, said: 'How can someone loan us ourselves?'
Claude Ardouin, a Malian, is the head of the African Section at the BM. He disagrees: 'We need a shift from the passionate and sometimes uninformed debate, to one of partnership.' And he adds that the debate had done more harm than good. 'There is a lot of misinterpretation and misinformation. The objects in Hazina are not the result of any fight. These objects are not stolen.'
But the BM has said that one result of Hazina is that it has learned more about the objects and how they were used. Perhaps there is also more to know about how these objects were acquired.
During my visit, the Kenyan people were preparing to receive back two Vigango (also called Kigango) or grave markers which had been looted from the country and found in the Illinois State Museum, Springfield, US. They were part of a 20-year organised theft and there are believed to be hundreds of Vigango scattered around the States.
The drought that has taken hold in Kenya (mainly the north but with effects on the rest of Kenya) has been explained by some groups as a sign of annoyance by the ancestors because of their missing grave markers. The provenance of the Vigango may be clear, but if there ever was a rock solid reason for the return of objects, spiritual significance must be it.
Elizabeth Ouma, the coordinator of the VVOB-NMK Interactive Public Programmes Project, is unusual, not for her stance that the Hazina objects should remain in the UK but for her reasons why. Ouma says rather passionately: 'Why should they stay? These objects were collected during the colonial era. They tell that story. They do not tell the story of African culture.'
Ouma is part of a team charged with discovering what makes an African museum. The answers will feed into the new NMK galleries, with the first phase to be completed at the end of 2007. Hopefully the team will look at the Kisumu Museum in western Kenya. It is the only impressive model of intangible heritage among the NMK's 17 museums.
It has recreated a Luo (an ethnic group) village scene, using interactives to bring alive the story of family life. It is a breath of fresh air after the static displays in the NMK's museums, which have led questions as to how exactly the objects behind the glass were used.
The DCMS has already deemed Hazina a success and has promised an additional £75,000 for this financial year for the continuation of the Africa project. There is talk of a Ghana gold project in time for Ghana's 50th anniversary of independence next year.
It seems a shame that Hazina, which tells the story of various East African partnerships, will not have the chance to travel to neighbouring countries, or to come to the UK.
As Farah says, the lasting legacy of this collaboration has been that the NMK can now ask for objects to come back and forth and on longer loan. And it can negotiate loans with other countries: 'Tomorrow I can sit down with museums in the US or Germany because we already have a precedent.'
