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Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses methodologies for community-based consultations used to determine the use and significance of African objects in museums that have no archival record. It questions the approaches for balancing dissenting voices and how we utilize the new narratives moving forward.

Paper long abstract:

African works now in European and American museums too often lack documentation about their original use or significance. One method to address this archival absence is to consult with community informants. But what do we do when these voices dissent from one another? How do we balance many interpretations as we move forward?

This paper focuses on our experience at the Fowler Museum at the University of California Los Angeles working with community collaborators to address a single example of a carved wooden mask, likely from Nigeria. We have no archives documenting the work’s departure from Africa. While we have been able to determine a likely provenance, in speaking with many informants, we have sought to understand the mask’s original use and significance in Nigeria and to determine future paths forward for the work. These consultations have provided a myriad of interpretations with no single consensus, particularly in regards to determining the mask’s original purpose.

In the absence of both archival material and community agreement, this paper considers ways forward that balance the many possible meaning in our future interpretations (and in our internal database). In terms of care of the object, how do we balance recommendations or prescriptions for the object (some informants have indicated no women should see the mask)? And in terms of our records and interpretations, how do we acknowledge the archival absence and provide space for many possibilities?