[Épinglé] Anglophone Topic of the Month: TRAVELING EXHIBITIONS

It’s an excellent subject

1- the advantages

Travelling exhibitions can be an alternative to reconnect the African public with their cultural heritage (material and intangible). They would make it possible to implement the new definition of the museum as an open space connected with the public. The African public is not used to visiting museums so they must be made aware by bringing museums to societies through itinerant exhibitions that would place the public at the heart of the scenography system. Thus, the public could interact with the collections to exhibit elements of intangible heritage (singing, dance, initiation, storytelling, divination, etc.)

In Senegal, experiments have been conducted to make museums and cultural collections accessible to society through teaching and awareness. For example, we can cite:

The didactic and pedagogical program "the museum goes to school" initiated by two IFAN researchers to participate in citizenship education by making culture accessible to set in the memory of young people, the historical dens of the Senegalese nation,

The "muséobus" project set up by the Museum of the Armed Forces of Senegal to open up culture by putting into circulation a mobile museum to disseminate war culture that is a source of national pride.

And the traveling exhibition project undertaken by the IFAN archaeology laboratory in 2021 to circulate archaeological remains using a museum bus and an accessible scenography.

2- the difficulties

Travelling exhibitions are not very developed in Africa because there is no synergy at the continental level. African museums are not connected access, human and financial resources are lacking, the non-application of the free movement of goods and people, the "death" or paralysis of ICOM-Africa and the very low living standards of the population trying to survive from day to day.

However, hope is being born with the new generation, which is more dynamic and more committed to the conservation and enhancement of African heritage.

Africa have different culture and religion where where if the African Museums consider travelling exhibition in African countries it will unite Us make us know the different culture among African countries.

The Difficulties that we may encounter is different religious believed and the process of given out the museums object to be used in the exhibition which required an experts on how it will be handled to avoid damaging also there is need to provide well documented agreement between the museums and the organizer's of the program mean while before arrival to any country have to send a 3D picture of every object in the exhibition and before departure have to check them all in order to avoid stealing of another object in the country with that I advice to use replicate museums object or to use pictorial Exhibition.

 While youth will participate in awareness of people to patronized the exhibition as well as the researchers can also visit likewise youth will provide adequate security to the exhibition and voluntary guide the visitors.

This is an interesting topic with a cultural diverse continent like Africa;

Advantages: i think the travelling exhibitions have the potential to build long lasting relationships between communities, they can pave way to creating new and potential networking opportunities through heritage. They will provide numerous opportunities for growth in terms of donor engagement.

Travelling exhibitions will also help our African museums to engage more with the public. I believe the exhibitions will give our museums an opportunity to challenge their creative approach and how they communicate our historical/heritage knowledge and information to the diverse audience.

Difficulties: travelling on its own means more finances to be put forth. This will mean a big budget to cover the works of the stakeholders engaged in making the travelling exhibitions viable.

Also there is an issue of technical preparedness to carry out the travelling exhibitions. We need to ensure there is thorough understanding of how we are going to manage some aspects such as preservation of some marine collections just to give an example, and how long will they take in planned rotational travelling exhibitions before being taken back to their permanent storages/displays.

Hi all and thanks for bringing in this fantastic topic.

I think taking museum to the public will help a lot build a strong bond between communities and museum staffs and the level of engagement in museum will also be improved. For example, In Botswana and Rwanda the national museum has started to learn more from local communities and encourage the participation of the communities in their activities through a mobile exhibition. Mobile museum will also help to know the need of the communities in the museum because through this communities will also be in a good position in challenging the museum on what they have been doing and the museum will also be in position of collecting their mistakes.

I also think disadvantage of mobile exhibition is that privacy will be no longer be observed. There are some objects in our museum were not meant to accessed/seen by everyone so mobile exhibition will provide a room to the public in accessing the collection which is violation of communities' rules and regulations.