This presentation reflects on what it means for West African cultural objects to be in the Kulturmuseum St. Gallen today. It uses the idea of a shared heritage to suggest that St. Gallen’s custody of objects from Ghana geographically separates them from their “home” cultures, but concurrently bridges them into a Swiss “holding” culture. Overall, it contemplates the potential of critical engagements between the home and holding cultures to shift Swiss public imagination about these objects from being showpieces of “other” cultures to material embodiments of trans-cultural living archives and memories that simultaneously reflect rooted and relational worldviews.

Museumscocktail: Living Archives and Memories through West African Cultural Objects in St. Gallen, Kurzführung in der Ausstellung «Die Welt ins Museum. Vom Handeln, Sammeln und Entdecken», mit anschliessendem Gespräch im MUCAFÉ, mit Dr. Ernest Sewordor, Historiker und Monika Mähr, Kuratorin (in Englisch).