Alas, it seems all about ‘babies’ and ‘bathwater’…

DAVID SAKS

It had been recognised that if the museum was to remain a respected and properly funded cultural and educational resource, it had to move decisively away from the heavily Eurocentric focus of the past.

No more, for example, could the importation of slaves be attributed to the “unwillingness of the Hottentots to work for the white man”, nor could Bartholomew Dias be described as the man who “discovered” the Cape.

Since leaving MuseumAfrica, I have occasionally taken my kids there, but after my last visit in December, am unlikely to do so again. Empty spaces abounded, whole sections were unlit, interactive displays no longer functioned and hardly anything new seemed to have been added since I was last there.

Even more revealingly, we were the only visitors, despite this being a Sunday. What used to be the offices of a range of curators – among them a geologist, ethnographer, two historians and curators for the costume and picture collections, have been unoccupied for years.

Whatever reasons there might be for the disastrous state of neglect, it cannot be attributed to a failure to adapt to post-apartheid realities. If anything, successive curators have swung too far in the other direction for fear of being accused of pandering to notions of white cultural domination.

As a result, the “old” was jettisoned almost in its entirety in favour of installations whose themes carefully, even slavishly, mirrored what was felt to be the acceptable post-colonial “Struggle” narrative.

The new-look MuseumAfrica certainly mounted some ground-breaking displays, but in the end, though, far too little of its remarkably rich and diverse collection has been put on display post-1994. 

Over the decades, MuseumAfrica has amassed a vast array of artefacts. Certainly, this includes material reminiscent of the bad old days of Eurocentric historiography – all those 1820 Settler tea cosies, Royal Visit memorabilia, Great Trek flintlocks, Randlords’ furniture and the like – but the greater part of it is ideologically neutral: radios, washing machines, gramophones, ornaments, toys and whatever else one might think of.

There is even a Sefer Torah, which the descendants of the original donor sought in vain to have returned to the family.

The museum also houses an extraordinary pictorial collection – photographs, prints, water colours, oils, engravings and more. Virtually all of this also now languishes in storage, unseen by all except the curator in charge and the occasional researcher.

The (apparently permanent) consignment to storage of the greater part of MuseumAfrica’s collections, is undoubtedly one of the reasons why the museum is today so little visited. It was something I used to harp on continually when I was there, although invariably, my bleats along the lines of “babies” and “bathwater” were disregarded.

Ultimately, however, this immeasurably rich and varied repository of South Africa’s heritage is today in crisis because it has been starved of resources by the City Council. It would seem that those in charge of such matters simply do not see its value, whether as a public recreational space, tourist attraction, research and educational resource or historical conservation facility.

Something similar has happened to the Johannesburg Art Gallery, whose superb collections have likewise been put into storage since they represent in the main the white European tradition. (The fact that it is not entirely unknown for Europe to have produced the occasional talented artist, was apparently not enough of a factor in the decision).

It would not be so bad if at least indigenous African art had gone up to replace those irredeemably tainted works – Gerard Sekoto, for example – but that has not happened either. Instead, one finds the same empty, unlit spaces, with hardly anything to see, even in areas that are being used. And, like MuseumAfrica, the gallery is now all but unvisited.

I’m probably sticking my neck out here, but I believe that all this neglect – MuseumAfrica and the Johannesburg Art Gallery are just two such examples – reflects a profound disinclination on the part of many black South Africans to relate to and connect in any meaningful way with the physical record of their country’s history.

 It is almost as if the past is too painful and traumatic, too redolent with memories of cultural subservience and racial humiliation, to be dwelt on, let alone cherished and celebrated.

Even heritage sites and artefacts exclusively relating to black history and culture (such as the graves of the Xhosa chiefs Ngjika and Maqoma and MuseumAfrica’s impressive repository of items illustrating multiple aspects of traditional African life) are greatly under-exploited.

It could be that institutions like museums and art galleries are seen as being irredeemably the products of a white, colonial era, and that no amount of politically correct twisting and turning will ever remove that taint. Personally, I am just depressed by the gigantic waste of it all.