Mr. H.M. Stanley's Anglo-American expedition for the exploration of Central Africa - Bumbireh Hospitality; A Wild Indian Show; and Emigrants Attacked By Indians

POWERFUL OBJECTS is a selection of ephemeral and cultural objects and documents from private and public collections, shown across the many venues of NIRIN. POWERFUL OBJECTS offer a trans-historical window through which to engage with cultural material from different places and times. There is a microcosm of countless objects dispersed internationally, which have been selected to resonate with the broader themes, artworks and actions of NIRIN. These are resilient pieces of evidence, modes of storytelling, clues and traces, all reminding us of forgotten or ignored ceremonies, histories and trajectories set forth by communities, artisans, historians, silent witnesses and healers – some un-named or un-recorded. These objects help reignite and sustain our connection to each other through time immemorial, revealing connections across times, places, and people that may not be apparent to us all today.

The audience is reminded that some of these archives are important cultural and ceremonial objects, sparking conversations around the restitution of objects taken or stolen. Some objects such as photographs and grave-markers reveal inherited anxieties from the past that continue to surface in our present times. At times, these archives are at the centre of debates and decisions around what we should or shouldn’t see, about what we should keep alive or what should disappear altogether. These processes and discussions can be painful, productive and confronting.

The proximity of these archives to each other and to contemporary artworks in NIRIN invites us to acknowledge them in old and new ways, to question the validity of established truths and to reveal new pathways of intersecting histories that challenge prevailing ignorant and dominant narratives. Re-framing these objects and archives can be a means to pass on knowledge to younger generations, and to reconnect with histories disrupted by colonialism or breakage. In corroboration or through contradiction, these objects reveal history to be a tactile, alive and sensuous material, beyond language and shaped by our emotions and desires.

For hundreds of years, some objects, including human remains, have been smuggled or officially transported across borders, checkpoints and quarantines. The way some of these materials have been collected and classified is a sign of their value to us, especially if they have been hidden in research labs or storerooms. Inevitably they all represent the continuation of our cultures and our futures. They may have been documented, protected or hidden in museums, with provenances forgotten, made-up or created through conservation and registration protocols. These objects are a reminder to us all that some of them are recognised and cared for in ways many people are not. Ours and our objects’ comparable experiences of mobility and displacement make it clear that our realities are closely connected. As such, so too are our futures. It is important how we choose to acknowledge and remember this entangled mess of connections.

These complex situations deserve thought and deep respect. Some communities are still encountering newly validated or previously obscured histories, the acknowledgment of which may still involve inter-generational traumas. The complexities around actions of restitution are not so easily resolved, but in their constellations, these objects provide webs of meaning to consider possible closure, healing and rejoicing. In turn, they point to the role that stories and their material evidence play in the production and testimony of identity and truth, enabling us to give language to our multiple realities and locate the personal within collective experiences.

Healing is an essential commitment for us to make, and in the context of exploring POWERFUL OBJECTS this might involve a mix of reflective and ceremonial gestures or the most basic of acknowledgments to the people it affects the most. Some cultural objects carry physical and psychic traces of cultural meaning and action, requiring careful protocol to assist our comprehension of their complexity, how they once fit into the worlds they come from and the places, that in many cases, they must return to.