A contemporary design for African and European museums is the goal of TheMuseumsLab. The programme, which the DAAD launched in cooperation with the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin - Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research (MfN) and other partner institutionsorganisations in 2021 and has supported financially ever since, brings together 50 museum professionals from Africa and Europe each year, providing them with a broad platform for sharing knowledge and perspectives. 

What form should the museum of the future take? Should it be an exhibition of cultural heritage at a permanent site? Or rather an oral history, a collection of stories? The programme TheMuseumsLab is open to various answers – and above all embraces different perspectives. “By engaging in exchange with the African and European fellows, we broaden our view of what a museum can be,” says Programme Manager Meryem Korun from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science (MfN). She believes it is important to question and rethink established concepts and to constantly evolve as a modern institution. 

Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and the Federal Foreign Office, the programme was jointly developed by the DAAD, the MfN and several African and European institutions. Currently, the initiative has over 50 international museums and other cultural institutions as its partners. Led by the MfN, alternating museums from both continents are involved in defining its content each year. “For the first time, alumni and alumnae from the past three years of the programme, plus an international academic committee, are helping us with the conceptualisation process this year,” explains Korun.

Showing respect and empathy  

TheMuseumsLab takes the form of three seminar modules run by renowned African and European experts in online and face-to-face sessions. In 2024, scholarship holders will be meeting in Berlin and Accra. They will complete their residency in tandems at African and European partner institutions. Anyone wishing to apply to take part in the programme must have at least two years’ experience of working in the museum, cultural heritage or art sectors: the initiative brings together curators, museum managers, conservators, architects and artists from both continents. 

“Our goal is to establish strong, lasting and diverse networks of participants and participating museums and cultural institutions and thereby to contribute to the intercontinental and international transformation of museums,” says Korun. She explains that the programme also contributes to the process of coming to terms with the colonial past, as well as to the debate about restitution: “Participants should be prepared to break with colonially influenced viewpoints and narratives and to learn from one another.” Topical questions of museum management and the provision of educational services to accompany exhibitions are on the agenda, as is the handling of collections from colonial contexts. “The scholarship holders also exchange views about practical issues such as the use of suitable software, storage methods or the topic of digitisation,” explains Korun. “In addition, the programme aims to reflect on the existing structures of international cooperation and to get the participants to jointly consider what form a new ethical framework for international cooperation might take.” 

Career springboard

Much has already been accomplished in the past few years: the programme’s alumni network curates intercontinental exhibitions and has developed an online format for objects relating to the colonial context. Furthermore, new partnerships have been established between participating institutions. “In addition, TheMuseumsLab gives scholarship holders the chance to advance their professional careers,” explains Korun. 

Terence Besaka, who took part in TheMuseumsLab in 2023 and works as a conservator at the Musée national du Cameroun in Yaoundé, also benefitted from the programme: “In my job, which involves preserving and restoring the exhibits at our constantly growing museum, I face numerous challenges,” he says, explaining that TheMuseumsLab gave him the opportunity to acquire essential knowledge and engage in exchange with the other participants. “Our conversations were very creative and interesting, and I enjoyed contributing my ideas to the discussion.”  

During his residency at the Museum am Rothenbaum – Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK) in Hamburg, Besaka worked closely with the conservators there. He was also involved in planning the transfer of the MARKK exhibition “Hey Hamburg, do you know Duala Manga Bell?” to the Musée national du Cameroun, which is to go on show there from September 2024. It tells the life stories of the Cameroonian royal family Duala Manga Bell and thus shines a spotlight on the topics of colonial heritage and racism, and on how they impact individuals and society as a whole. 

“With the help of TheMuseumsLab, my colleagues and I in Cameroon were able to prepare ourselves properly for the international exhibition,” says Besaka. “What is more, we were able to use the MARKK’s extensive documentation.” He also plans to keep an eye on the projects being pursued by the other programme participants as food for thought for himself and his home country. In addition, he is involved in work on “Climate Wahala”, an augmented reality game jointly created by the former scholarship holders of his programme year. It encourages players to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and provides them with information about climate change.
 

Shared visions 

Networking, informative discussions, new perspectives: once they have completed their fellowship, alumni continue to feel connected to the basic idea behind TheMuseumsLab and act as the programme’s ambassadors. “An alumna from the 2022 cohort gave me a full and detailed account of her positive experiences,” says Ifunanya Madufor, assistant curator at the Centre for Memories in Enugu, Nigeria. The Nigerian writer and cultural studies expert applied to the initiative and, at the kick-off event in May 2023, met some highly motivated fellows. “One of the topics we addressed was the restitution of human remains and tangible culture from European museums to their respective African places of origin,” she explains. 

During her residency at the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin, Madufor, who specialises in African indigenous knowledge systems, studied, in particular, those artefacts in the collection that come from her home region of Igbo in Nigeria. “I then expanded the information context surrounding these artworks and the database.” Her hard work paid off: Madufor is currently a scholarship holder at the Ethnologisches Museum, where she continues to contribute her expertise as a research associate. “Furthermore, thanks to the programme I was able to broaden my network considerably and met many people who share my visions,” she says. Together, they are now working to raise the profile of Africa’s indigenous knowledge systems. “My personal goal is to influence discourse within the Nigerian museum sector and to advocate authentic stories,” Madufor says. “In this way, I hope to ensure that the original narrative of our cultural heritage is truthfully conveyed.” She wants to see programmes like TheMuseumsLab extended, encompassing all aspects of cultural heritage and fostering inspiration, knowledge exchange and cooperation for the sake of a more advanced cultural landscape. This is a view she shares with Meryem Korun: “Amid the increasing crises and conflicts in the world, people are tending to distance themselves from one another. It is especially at times like these that initiatives like TheMuseumsLab are needed to bring individuals together and focus on dialogue with other people and perspectives.”

Christina Pfänder (13 February 2024)