Blog post by Marko Frelih, PhD, archaeologist and curator of non-European collections (Africa and America) and Tina Palaić, anthropologist and educator.
Nearly half a meter high expressive sandalwood sculpture has been donated to the Slovene Ethnographic Museum in December 2015. Three distorted elongated faces with sarcastic smiles and absent looks reflect the feeling of being lost, the agony and tragedy. They look like passive characters waiting for the salvation. While watching the sculpture can we sense any hope and faith in a better tomorrow?
The donated piece of art was made by the greatest and the most influential Mozambican sculptor of the 20th century, Alberto Chissano (1935–1994). Raised in the countryside, he spent his early life as a shepherd. He was self-taught and had no academic education in the field of arts. He began sculpting in his late twenties and immediately demonstrated his talent for working with wood, especially fragrant sandalwood. His creative energy shaped a range of unusual creatures from mighty tree trunks or forked branches, which at first sight seem timeless in an unknown space. However, his sculptures are often the very images of reality, which tell us a lot about the history of Mozambique. Most of them reflect the last years of the colonial period and the beginning of Mozambican independence with all the struggle, starvation, suffering and also joy and pride of the Mozambican people.
Mozambique was a Portuguese colony from the 16th century onwards, famous for its slave trade and abundant natural resources. The exploitation of the local population and especially the dissemination of anti-colonial ideologies led to a long struggle for an independent Mozambique. After long war of independence, which lasted from 1964 to 1974, the country was plagued from 1977 to 1992 by a long and violent civil war. From 1978 to 1982 the Yugoslav ambassador in Mozambique was Mr. Željko Jeglič. Since at that time the conflict raged only in the border areas, Mr. Jeglič and his wife Nevenka Marija, an economist, could travel quite a lot around the country and discover their rich culture. During their explorations of Mozambican art they also met the famous sculptor Alberto Chissano. After having been friends for years, Mr. Jeglič invited the renowned Chissano to Slovenia. In 1981 he attended the 14th Meeting of Naive Artists of Yugoslavia in Trebnje, where beside other art works he also made a wooden sculpture, which he named “Friendship”. On this occasion he also donated three wooden sculptures to the Slovene Ethnographic Museum. In the same year Alberto Chissano participated in an international art competition in Belgrade and was awarded the first and second prize for his sculptures. Few years ago, Mr. Jeglič and his wife have donated a part of their African collection to the Slovene Ethnographic Museum. The depicted sandalwood sculpture was their last donation.
From the mid-19th century onwards the contacts between Slovenes and Africans from different countries are quite well documented. Especially in the post-World War II period the contacts with Africa increased due to Yugoslavia’s non-aligned policy. Evidently our collections were developed in the non-colonial context which gives us a different starting point for thinking about collecting and interpreting them in comparison with museums in colonialist countries. What are the implications of the non-colonial context for museum practice? How should we collect and interpret African collections in the 21st century? How can the perspectives of Africans living in Slovenia be integrated into museum interpretation? These are some of the questions we would like to reconsider during the SWICH project.
