Beyond object ID: Interrogating entangled histories of collections of the National Museum of Ghana

This 'work in progress' seminar welcomes Mark Seyram Amenyo-Xa (University of Ghana and Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies).

The discourse on restitution, largely dominated by requests for the return of African cultural heritage in European/Western museums and cultural institutions with questionable acquisition history, often overshadows critical internal requirements for expertise development and collection maintenance in African museums. The documentation on the collections of many museums in Africa hardly go beyond object IDs – least adequate information about the objects.

In this seminar, Mark Seyram Amenyo-Xa will talk about how a collaborative provenance research project attempts to bring together curators of the museum and students of museum studies, to engage with existing documentation on the museum’s collection.

As a means of updating collections’ documentation and improving interpretation, this exploratory project aims also to develop essential skills in provenance research among museum practitioners and students, predicated on the central thesis that the National Museum of Ghana's (NMG) collections documentation must be revisited by moving beyond object IDs to embrace entangled histories.

This exploratory project aims also to develop essential skills in provenance research among museum practitioners and students, predicated on the central thesis that the NMG’s collections documentation must be revisited by moving beyond object IDs to embrace entangled histories.

Adopting the framework of Histoire Croisée and interstitial provenance, the methodology will integrate archival investigation of institutional collecting mechanisms (e.g. Ghana Museums and Monuments Board records, Wellcome Historical Medical Museum transfer documents) with ethnographic fieldwork and oral histories. This multi-modal approach is necessary to validate alternative knowledge epistemologies and circumvent the inherent narrative constraints of strictly archive-based colonial records.

About the speaker

Mark Seyram Amenyo-Xa began his professional career as an administrator and curator with the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board and has over a decade’s experience working with the Forts and Castles World Heritage Site.

He now teaches full-time in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at the University of Ghana. He teaches courses in collections care and management, exhibition development, and monuments conservation.

He holds a PhD in Museum and Heritage Studies from the University of Ghana.

More information

This seminar is organised by the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds. It is free to attend and all are welcome.

Feature image

A pair of Kuduo on display in the Elmina Castle Gallery, National Museum of Ghana. Photo by Mark Seyram Amenyo-Xa. Used with permission from the National Museum of Ghana.