“Augmented Curiosities: Virtual Play in African Pasts and Futures” is the Fall quarter exhibit at the Herskovits Library. It uses augmented and virtual reality to bring African artifacts to life and is designed to be interactive and give objects more in-depth backstories. For those unable to visit in person, a digital version of the exhibit is also available online: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/augmentedcuriosities
According to Craig Stevens, an anthropology graduate student who curated the exhibit, the exhibit’s title refers to the “cabinets of curiosity” that some European aristocrats assembled and displayed to show off their taste and worldwide reach. This method not only established the framework for contemporary museum acquisition, but it also classified African and other artefacts as “curiosities.” The Herskovits exhibit, however, departs from this trend by making objects more accessible and presenting them with a consciousness of their cultural context.
This exhibit features six unique objects from the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies. Each is presented by a member of the Northwestern community with a direct connection to the object. Alumnus Bright Gyamfi (history, 2023) discusses a Black Stars Makarapa designed as fan memorabilia for the Ghanaian National Soccer Team during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. (2) Antawan Byrd (art history) talks about a bust carved by the renowned Nigerian sculptor Felix Idubor in 1955. (3) Chris Abani (PAS director and English) describes a Yoruba figure from the Oyo region of Nigeria and its uses in shrines in the late 19th-early 20th century. (4) Craig Stevens (graduate student in anthropology) explains the uses of the Nuna smoking pipe made in the 1970s in Tamale, Ghana. (5) Esmeralda Kale (George & Mary LeCron Foster Curator, Herskovits Library) reviews a wooden and paper fan that commemorates the 1951 reelection of Liberia’s 19th president, William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman. (6) Natalia Molebatsi (poet and graduate student, performance studies) reflects on a beaded fertility doll from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, designed by a participant in the Rural Craft and HIV/AIDS Awareness Project administered by M.L. Sultan Technikon in Durban and Middlesex University in London.
For more information about this exhibit visit Northwestern Now and the Northwestern Library websites.