MuseumAfrica: Colonial Past, Postcolonial Present

Abstract

This article uses the history of Johannesburg's MuseumAfrica (formerly the Africana Museum) to determine what happens when we enter a museum informed by its particular history. Tracing this museum's story – from its founder's arrival in South Africa in 1902 to the near present – it asserts that by probing the biographies of the museum, its personnel, and its objects its present state is rendered newly understandable. This process of uncovering biography and what is here termed backstory then becomes a methodology capable of being used in multiple postcolonial institutions.