Digital Queer Archive in Africa and the Diaspora

Digital Queer Archive in Africa and the Diaspora sheds light on female, queer, inter, and transgender narratives in museum collections featuring African artefacts and artworks.

Colonialism, Christianity, and Western science have enforced certain understandings of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. In this project, we aim to unpack often untold narratives that were silenced through these historical events. The product will be a digital archive which features oral history, artistic approaches, speculative readings, and archival findings. The archive will be an open catalogue and feature 3D scans and audio mappings of initially about fifteen artefacts which are linked to female, queer, inter, and trans narratives. The scans are accompanied by text, audio, or video interview contributed by community experts and other qualified persons such as researchers and artists. The digital archive will serve as a guide for museum professionals and queer communities, illustrating examples of the stories hidden in the collections and how these can be told and made visible.

Project Team

Alumni

• Dr Isabel Bredenbröker | Project lead, formal administration of funds, audio contributions, research and communication, copy-editing, finding contributions, representation in academia
• Nneoma Angela Okorie | Communication with web designers, research and communication with museums/contributors, creating the fanzine
• Tshidy Kamogelo Ngoma | Research and communication with museums/contributors, workshop coordination in Ghana, launch at Botswana National Museum
• Dr Noam Gramlich | Co-Project lead, research and communication, MARKK launch, organisation in Kumasi, communication with web designers

Partner Museums and Involved Institutions

• Museum am Rothenbaum. Kulturen und Künste der Welt - MARRK | Hamburg, Germany
• Botswana National Museum | Gaborone, Botswana
• Pitt Rivers Museum | Oxford, UK
• Afrika Museum | Tervuren, Belgium
• University of Bremen | Bremen, Germany
• pIAR – perfocraZe International Artist Residency | Kumasi, Ghana
• Museum Fünf Kontinente | Munich, Germany

From Connection to Collaboration

The idea was born during TheMuseumsLab programme 2024. During the modules, several discussions among the fellows addressed the challenge of integrating feminist and female perspectives into postcolonial practices and memory culture. Carrying the theme into the alumni group, we finally became a team of five curators and researchers based in European and African countries. The project team is Thsidy Kamogelo Ngoma (Gaborone), Nneoma Angela Okorie (Lagos), Noam Gramlich (Berlin) and Isabel Bredenbröker (Bremen).

Collaborating institutions emerged through connections with alumni, residencies and our affiliations. In collaboration with the University of Bremen, MARKK (Hamburg), the Botswana National Museum (Gaborone), the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford), the Afrika Museum (Tervuren), and the independent art space pIAR (Kumasi), we will research queer histories around collections and foster transcontinental exchange with experts. 

The initiative TheMuseumsLab CollabFund is funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).