Bonus: Decolonising the AfricaMuseum with Bart Ouvry

We sit down with Bart Ouvry, managing director of AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, Belgium, to speak about the challenges he faces attempting to decolonise a colonial museum. Established in 1898, the museum originally served as a propaganda tool to lend support to Belgium's King Leopold II's colonial ambitions in Congo and central Africa. By the late 20th century, the museum was being widely and critically called into question, leading to a five year renovation plan that started in 2013, intended to revamp it both physically and philosophically. Since reopening in late 2018, AfricaMuseum has continued to receive mixed opinions from many different perspectives. This testifies to the complexities and controversies that remain inherent within any discussion about historical narratives and what different and divisive consequences they can bear for people today. To hear more about the museum team’s journey in forging a path through this mire, we were lucky enough to sit down with Bart in his office to ask him about his own background, the importance of history, about his role at the museum and about what it’s like to lead a team that is faced with tackling such difficult and monumental task. Do you want to know more about Flemish and Dutch history and culture? Visit Our theme music is created by Samuel P K Smith. Music clips provided by Storyblocks: "Minimal Documentary Background Music" by Volodymyr Piddubnyk "Documentary Corporate Marimba Background Music" by Media-Music Group "Jazz Bass And Drums Solo" by Volodymyr Piddubnyk "Escaping Forever" by Michael Vignola Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can listen to Bonus: Decolonising the AfricaMuseum with Bart Ouvry online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Bonus: Decolonising the AfricaMuseum with Bart Ouvry is an episode from History of the Netherlands by Republic of Amsterdam Radio.

This episode is 48:21 long.

This episode was published on Dec 23, 2024.

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