The Sound in the Museum

Abstract

In the summer of 2015, the Metropolitan Museum of Art presented an exhibition “Warriors and Mothers: Epic Mbembe Art.” Included among the objects was seventeen seconds of looped sound audible throughout the exhibition. The exhibition displayed carvings that were once parts of ikoro – large slit drums that had been essential in ceremonial practice of Nigeria’s Cross River Province. By placing carvings and sound within the space of a Western art museum, the visitor is subtly encouraged to view these as “art works,” dislocated from their function in cultural context. In effect, the museum has exercised cultural colonialism, appropriating objects into a Western construct of art and music.