Healing the Colonial Wound in ‘Europa Oxalá’ - Decolonial Aesthesis in the AfricaMuseum

Abstract

This thesis analyses how a colonial museum could decolonise itself. Central to this is the importance of addressing the colonial wound. For this, this research focuses on the Belgian-Congolese context as Belgium is a country that has had many difficulties in dealing with its colonial past. Reparation efforts have been dismissed despite calls to decolonize society and apologise for the colonial history. Specifically, this thesis analyses the controversial AfricaMuseum in Tervuren which was initially commissioned to be a propaganda tool for the Belgian monarchy and colonisation. A recent exhibition at the museum, Europa Oxalá is analysed as a case study as this exhibition deals with the colonial wound in different artistic practising. This exhibition was chosen as it is the second exhibition after the renovations of the AfricaMuseum that involves artists’ active participation. The artists discuss postmemory, heritage, and identity in postcolonial Europe. Europa Oxalá enters the AfricaMuseum as a decolonial option, thus allowing for a reflection on the institution. For this, this thesis uses decolonial praxis to analyse how a museum like the AfricaMuseum could decolonise. For this, this thesis uses Vázquez’s decolonial path, Firstly, this research establishes the country’s modernity, coloniality and colonial difference. Subsequently, based on the decolonial path, Europa Oxalá is analysed as an entry towards decoloniality and of decolonial aesthesis. Decolonial aesthesis enables a decolonial critique of museums in the ways in which they have made us see the world and how power and violence operate through museums. For Europa Oxalá, three questions of the decolonial path are further implemented, which concern the What, the Who, and the How. This thesis illustrates that in addressing the colonial wound, Europa Oxalá and its artist can enter decoloniality as it seeks to emplace other worlds of meaning by uncovering and remembering what has been erased by coloniality.