Mining the British Museum

Masquerade Room as part of the Sainsburies African Galleries

The British Museum is organised by a series of galleries each containing artefacts from a certain culture, the separate rooms in these galleries are then used to group together similar objects from either the same region or time. This is how the curator tries to represent every culture, although every culture is analysed by an outsider. Therefore it can be argued that it isn’t an accurate representation of these cultures as the curators ideas are projected onto us through the displays.

The Masquerade Room tries to create a narrative of culture, they have a general synopsis of the tradition of Masquerade opposite a huge display cabinet filled with various masks that are used in traditional ceremonies across Africa. The masks are divided into 4 categories;

1. What is a Mask- A general introduction into the different kinds of masks and their purposes
2. Wild Beasts- Masks emulating wild animals, as a way for the wearer to channel their spirits
3.  Female Masks- Females aren’t generally allowed in Masquerade, therefore men wear female masks to portray women in the ceremonies.
4. The Dead- Masks used to channel spirits of the dead, or help relatives into the next life.

I think the room tries to tell a story, about the different masquerade traditions throughout Africa. However I feel that they leave out some key points in the labelling cards e.g. if a particular colour means certain individuals are more powerful. The more extravagant the mask = the more power the individuals or the village has? The Voice of the story is the Curator instead of a primary source, they choose which masks are on show and what labels each mask is given and by doing so project their own views and insights into the tradition on us.