Why EA needs world-class museum of art

East Africa, once described by Melville Herskovits as an “art desert” with a “cattle complex,” is in need of a world-class art museum. The case for such a facility will be made starting tomorrow when the director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C, Augustus (Gus) Casely-Hayford, arrives in Nairobi to lead a high-level public discussion on this very subject.

The public discussion is to be held at University of Nairobi’s Chandaria Hall, which is becoming the venue of choice for leading thinkers from around the world. Dr. Casely-Hayford’s visit will serve as a symbolic launch for the proposed World Class Museum of Art at the University of Nairobi.

The museum will be one of its kind between Cairo and Cape Town. In addition to the universal mandate of a good museum to preserve, protect, research, and display local art, this museum will most likely spur the expansion of creative industries and rehabilitate art-based academic disciplines that are already under attack.

Why build a museum of art at an institution of higher learning? This is the question that pops up in many people’s minds.The fact of the matter is that there are great museums on the campuses of the best world universities. Their presence not only takes teaching of art, history, anthropology, music, religion, technology, art history, art management, and curation to a new level (subjects we expect the planned museum to develop and support at the University of Nairobi), it also significantly improves the overall teaching environment.

The project is important enough to have influential organisations dedicated to it. One such organisation is the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG), whose motto is “Great Universities Have Great Museums,” has as its mandate oversight over museum practices for academic museums, galleries and collections.

The objective of developing an academic museum of art in Africa is to build capacity and the quality of research to provide world class validation to the artists of Africa in house, on the continent, without the need to look for qualified recognition elsewhere.

The story of African, particularly East African, art will then be told at a high level of discourse and on our own terms. As it is now, East African art remains probably the last undervalued art in the world, under-researched and under-curated.

Another piece of good news is that a well-structured art and museum scene generates an ever-increasing number of jobs and mobilises resources in our post-industrial age. The 2017 US National Report, Museums as Economic Engines: An Economic Impact Study for the American Alliance of Museums, revealed that “Each year, more than 850 million visits are made to US museums from all across US society, and that number continues to grow. …The total economic contribution of museums in 2016 amounted to more than $50 billion in GDP, 726,200 jobs, and $12 billion in taxes to local, state, and federal governments.”

A recent study by the largest travel advisory organisation, Trip Advisor, noted that 47 percent of global travellers visited destinations because of the people and culture of specific countries.I would guess that at this point tourists’ interest in Kenya is seriously skewed away from people and towards gnus, baby elephants, and giraffes. I have nothing against that side of animal kingdom, but the reason for it is not just that our animals are great and many, but also that the story of our rich culture and arts is not told well.

I was that cultural tourist recently when I had the privilege of visiting the Louvre Abu Dhabi, an art and civilisation museum, when it opened its doors last year. It was striking to see the number of visitors, mostly tourists. Most of them patiently waited for up to three hours to access the 8,000-square metre majestic edifice containing more than 35,000 pieces of art.

And indeed, the number of tourists in Abu Dhabi jumped from 4.3 million to more than 4.9 million the year Louvre- Abu Dhabi opened.If we develop a world-class museum of art in addition to the existing National Museum of Natural History and other art galleries, Kenya will become an attractive destination for tourists interested in art.It will also stimulate creativity, create high value employment, and boost sustainable economic development.