Visualizing trauma: the Belgian Museum for Central Africa and its discontents

Abstract

Fresh debates on the hybrid character of truth and identity undermine the authority of knowledge, and, as a consequence, its production and dissemination through public and thus officially sanctioned institutions. Kratz and Rassool argue that the museum, a flagship institution of knowledge dissemination, is fast becoming a site of narrative contests, producing a 'tug-of-war' that decentres values and expectations of curators and visitors alike. 1 The contestation of truth in competing narratives is the backdrop against which I started my engagement with the question of representation of 'Africa' and Belgian colonial rule in the permanent exhibition of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) up to the time of its temporary closure, for renovation, in December 2013. In an attempt to present fresh frames for retrieving memories from collective trauma, the article links discursive formations in the sphere of museology with recent debates on transitional justice, keeping in mind that the notion of 'dialogical truth' emerges from 'interaction, discussion and debate'. 2 The article comes in five sections. It opens with a tour of the permanent exhibition of the RMCA on the eve of its closing, weaving together the existing literature on the museum and my own observations. Next it sheds light on the origins of the museum and resultant controversies over the (mis)representation of colonialism in former colonial institutions. The essay goes on to explain, against the background of research on memory and trauma, how alternate forgetting and remembering of Belgian colonial rule translates into omissions and ambiguities in the permanent exhibition. The article proposes alternative frames for addressing the colonial dimension of Belgium's past and present relationship with Central Africa and eventually asks the question whether new beginnings are possible. In writing the article, I have drawn extensively from my own observations, interactions with museum staff, correspondence with academics and practitioners, and a range of primary and secondary sources many of which I consulted during repeat trips to Brussels for archival research in another contested metropolitan institution, the Royal Library of Belgium. A museum tourThe RMCA is one of 10 federal scientific institutions in Belgium, located in Tervuren, a small municipality on the outskirts of Brussels, the national capital. The first visit I paid to the permanent and temporary exhibitions of the RMCA in the course of this research-more were to follow in the months ahead-fell on a cold sunny day in February 2013. City dwellers visibly enjoyed taking a stroll in the lavish museum grounds, and visitors queued to have a peek at the temporary

Legacies of an imperial past in a small nation. Patterns of postcolonialism in Belgium

“…As a result, mostly foreign scholars continued to label the museum as a relic from the colonial past (Gewald, 2006, pp. 485-486;Hasian & Wood, 2010;Hoenig, 2014;Rahier, 2003). The 2005 exhibition, however, would soon prove to be a decisive turning point.…”

Reimagining the colonial wilderness: ‘Africa’, imperialism and the geographical legerdemain of the Vorrh

“…49 Just like maps, which demand visual literacy if not necessarily fluency with the written word, museums serve to impicture distant spaces. As a 'flagship institution of knowledge dissemination' 50 and an optimal medium of 'disciplining knowledge', 51 the museum (via its colonial exhibitions) was a powerful vehicle for shaping perception of the African continent. This fact is highlighted early on in The Vorrh via Tsungali, an African character whose serves as a paid assassin charged with hunting down Oneofthewilliams.…”

“…52 Specifically connecting museums to pop culture, Hoenig points out in his analysis of Belgian museums' treatment of imperialism in Congo that the curators did not display artefacts associated with what the 'Congolese actually experienced', instead offering up writings by Europeans about such atrocities, specifically, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, therein reinforcing the notion that geographical imagination of Africa systematically trumps the reality of the lived experience. 53 Framing Congo as a synecdoche of sub-Saharan Africa, Dunn notes that the country is 'overly textualized -a discursive space onto which numerous actors -internally and externally -have projected characteristics, images and meanings', a process, which has had deep impacts on the region's international relations. 54 Taken together, the map and the museum paved the way for a wide variety of cultural production that assumed a base level of 'knowledge' about the continent to Europe's south, including -at least for the purposes of this article -Catling's fabulous reimagining of the colonial African wilderness, which both displays a knowledge of historical critiques of the imperial gaze, while replicating key aspects of this cultural bias for dramatic effect.…”