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Title The Rwanda Art Museum, Haunted By Its Past
Full text https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22s018vg
Date 2019
Author(s) Lieber, Talia
Contributor(s) Mathur, Saloni; Roberts, Allen F
Abstract The Rwanda Art Museum houses Rwanda's largest collection of contemporary art comprised of primarily paintings and sculptures made by Rwandan artists after the 1994 genocide. This paper questions how Rwanda's traumatic past haunts the institution and how the museum responds to this history through its display of contemporary art. Not only is the museum's collection made up of artwork that grapples with the events of the genocide, it is now housed within a mansion that was the official residence for the former Rwandan president, Juvçnal Habyarimana. This paper, which builds on recent interventions in museology and postcolonial theories, examines the Rwanda Art Museum's repurposing of such a space'a site that symbolizes the violence, fear, and extravagance of the former president's regime'for the display of contemporary art.
Subject(s) Art history; African studies; Museum studies; contemporary art; genocide; museum; Rwanda; Rwanda Art Museum
Language en
Publisher eScholarship, University of California
Type of publication etd
Format application/pdf
Rights public
Identifier qt22s018vg
Repository Berkeley - University of California
Added to C-A: 2021-12-13;10:24:23