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NigerHeritage: Novel Solutions for Ancient and Historical Heritage

NigerHeritage: Novel Solutions for Ancient and Historical Heritage

An international group of scientists, social scientists, architects, and planners developed proposals for the design and function of three sites in Niger—a museum, a cultural center for nomadic peoples, and a fossil field site.

The NigerHeritage project involved rethinking the design and function of two cultural facilities and one paleontological site—a museum, a cultural center for nomadic peoples, and a fossil field site—for preservation of Niger’s paleontological, archaeological, and cultural heritage. Research, discussion, and forums held in the U.S. and Niger—involving scientists, social scientists, architects, planners, and the public—aimed to forge consensus plans for these cultural initiatives, the ultimate goals of which include long-term preservation and celebration of unique cultural heritage, engagement of surrounding communities, and novel architectural solutions that are sustainable and environmentally sensitive.

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NigerHeritage: Research, Development, and Planning for Novel Museum, Cultural Center, and Field Station

NigerHeritage: Research, Development, and Planning for Novel Museum, Cultural Center, and Field Station

This collaborative effort developed designs for a museum, a cultural center for nomadic peoples, and a fossil field site—each with a distinct role in the preservation of Niger’s paleontological, archaeological and cultural heritage.

This project involved rethinking the design and function of a museum, a cultural center for nomadic peoples, and local field stations—each with a distinct role in the preservation of Niger’s unique paleontological, archaeological and cultural heritage. Scientists, social scientists, architects, planners and the public in Niger collaborated to develop the mission and plans for these innovative, energy-efficient cultural initiatives, which will shepherd the repatriation and long-term stewardship of priceless artifacts originating from the region.

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The Otolith Group | Mascon: A Massive Concentration of Black Experiential Energy

The Otolith Group | Mascon: A Massive Concentration of Black Experiential Energy

In the fall of 2024, the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society will present a new moving-image work by the Otolith Group titled Mascon: A Massive Concentration of Black Experiential Energy. The exhibition is conceived as a complement to a new mural commissioned for the Art Institute of Chicago’s Griffin Court, on view starting September 26. The images that form the building blocks of the mural are stills from the film.

Both installations are presented as part of a series of exhibitions and events linked to Panafrica: Histories, Aesthetics, Politics, a multi-year research project at the Neubauer Collegium that is exploring the links between Pan-African politics and culture. Together the Otolith Group’s mural and film essay serve as a prelude to Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica, a major exhibition opening December 15 at the Art Institute that was informed by the research project and curated by members of the research team.

The artists describe Mascon as an “audiovisual investigation into the gestures, geometries, grammars, and geographies that compose the forms and forces of the films of Ousmane Sembène and Djibril Diop Mambéty.” Mascon consists of a mosaic of images extracted from the works of these two Senegalese directors, prominent figures among a generation of African auteurs whose films explored the emancipatory movements that swept across the continent in the late 1950s and early ’60s. According to the Otolith Group, their homage to these filmmakers “summons the borderless imagination of the cine-Sahel,” amplifying and distilling Sembène’s and Mambéty’s favored motifs in order to elicit what American literary scholar Stephen Henderson termed “mascon” (shorthand for “a massive concentration of black experiential energy”).

Curated by Dieter Roelstraete

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Panafrica: Histories, Aesthetics, Politics

A Kerry James Marshall sculpture depicting Africa

Panafrica: Histories, Aesthetics, Politics

A series of discussions will explore the links between Pan-African politics and cultural production.

In the view of this project’s leaders, Pan-Africanism articulates a universality comparable in its reach to Marxism. It has guided independence movements and anticolonial struggles in dozens of countries around the world where the majority of inhabitants are of African descent; it has shaped the terms of advocacy and protest in many more countries where they are not. Pan-Africanism has been as influential for intellectual history as psychoanalysis or post-structuralism, and it has lent heft to such internationally popular artistic and religious forms as reggae, Nollywood movies, and Candomblé. Yet Pan-Africanism is elusive in its manifold meanings; its appeal seems, moreover, always to be fading in one place while ascending elsewhere. Above all, Pan-Africanism is predominantly understood as a political movement—a call for equality, self-determination, and solidarity among Black peoples. What is the relation of that political cause to cultural production and to the humanities? This project will hold a series of seven convenings structured to explore a given location and private or institutional archives held there. The first will take place in Chicago and the rest will follow in a variety of international destinations. This interdisciplinary undertaking is conceived as an indispensable complement to a major loan exhibition on Pan-Africanist art and culture planned as the Art Institute of Chicago’s premier exhibition for fall 2024.

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