Belgium’s Africa Museum Comes Under Fire for a ‘Clichéd’ Africa-Themed Music Festival

The recently reopened Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium
has been caught in a media firestorm for allowing a music festival
to take place in which a partygoer reportedly wore blackface while
others turned up in clichéd “African” costumes included grass
skirts.

Colloquially known as the AfricaMuseum and located not far from
Brussels in Tervuren, the colonial-era institution founded byKing
Leopold II has worked hard to acknowledge the ruler’s infamous
colonization of the former Congo. The museum, which has huge
holdings of Congolese and African art and historic
objects, reopened last December
after an $84 million modernization that aimed to change its
colonial image.

The event, which was organized by the event group called Thé
Dansant, threatens to undermine the museum’s efforts. The
AfricaMuseum was quick to issue an apology. It says it had
contacted the organizers to address the problematic dress
code, but in hindsight the measure was “insufficient” as several
guests showed up wearing stereotypical attire.

Thé Dansant has staged outdoor electronic music events for the
past decade, changing their theme depending on their location. The
theme of last Sunday’s party was “Afrohouse,” which aimed to
celebrate electronic music with African influences. Guests were
encouraged to dress up accordingly: “Keep it colorful, African
prints, wakanda, la sape!” were suggested by the organizers on
Instagram, in reference to the fictional city from the blockbuster
film Black Panther and also to colonial-era dandies from
the Congo, whose dress was inspired by the French and who were
known as “sapeurs,” according to Wikipedia.

While most of the festival-goers avoided cliched stereotypes,
social media coverage of the event shows Thé Dansant participants
included one dressed as a pith-helmeted explorer, another in
blackface, and at least one wearing a an afro wig. Others were seen
donning bone necklaces and grass skits. “When the event was
announced on Facebook, we noticed that the dress code suggested by
Thé Dansant would likely encourage highly clichéd and stereotypical
representations of people of African origin,” wrote the museum
on Facebook, in response
to the criticism.

Café Congo, an artistic collective involved in reflection on
Belgian-Congo relations, called the museum out over Facebook:
“Explain to me how this sort of event—Thé Dansant—can continue to
exist in 2019 at the Africa Museum. Are the management and
communications team on Xanax? #NotMyAfricaMuseum #blackface.”

“The Africa Museum misjudged this situation and should have
played a greater role in imposing clear requirements and/or
conditions in advance,” the institution responded on social media.
“We take this incident seriously, and want to apologize for
mishandling the situation in such a way that this took place.” The
museum stressed it took responsibility for “this lapse in judgment,
and are working on an ethical action plan for upcoming events so
that this will not happen in the future.”

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‘Clichéd’ Africa-Themed Music Festival appeared first on
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