"Museums and the Theft of African Architecture"

HIAA Department Chair and Professor Itohan Osayimwese was recently invited to lecture in Art History department at Amherst College. Her talk “Museums and the Theft of African Architecture” sought to bring the historical and contemporary architectures of the African continent into the critical conversation of restitution. 

Thus far, the discussion of restitution has centered what one might call canonical African art including sub-Saharan masks and figurative sculpture. What does it mean to reframe as works of architecture, hundreds if not thousands of African art objects in US and European museums? And what is the effect of linking the translocation of works of African architecture effected during the colonial era to illicit trafficking in the independence era and beyond? Osayimwese's talk made the case for architecture’s place in the debate by analyzing the 1972 theft of sixteen Yoruba veranda columns from the museum of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. This daring theft, described as a national tragedy, remains unsolved today. Her talk asked how we can write histories of displaced, disappeared, destroyed, or hidden architectures, and how contemporary designers can create new, relevant forms and practices in this context.