Africa comes to Chicago - new permanent exhibit at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois

American Visions, Oct-Nov, 1993 by Anthony C. Murphy

As you walk through Stanley Hall at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, the lively and festive sounds of a marketplace grab your attention and engage your participation. The lure is Dakar, Senegal, where you join in a celebration of the Tabaski holy day before heading east toward Cameroon.

You've thus entered Africa," the Field Museum's newest permanent exhibition, which opens November 13, during the museum's centennial celebration. "Africa" marks the first time a major museum presents a permanent exhibit about Africa - one that encompasses the very look and feel of Africa and that is interpreted by people of the diaspora. "The exhibit was five years in the making," says African-American anthropologist Deborah Mack, the senior developer and co-director of the project.

Featuring one of the world's finest collections of African objects, "Africa" encompasses seven major sections that explore West, Central, East and North Africa, as well as the Americas, during different historical periods. Visitors don't just learn basic facts that dispel their misconceptions about Africa; they also examine how the artistic process relates to the sociopolitical and cultural needs of the major art-producing areas of Cameroon, Zaire, Benin and other parts of the continent, how animals adapt to environments in the Great Rift and the savannas, how the Sahara affects commerce, and how the African diaspora came to be.

The exhibit is designed to last approximately 20 years. "Ongoing programming will enhance its relevance and keep it fresh," Mack says, nothing that there are plans to employ African immigrants and other talent available in the Chicago area. In addition to the Senegal section, visitors enter the kingdom of Benin, explore the Great Rift, visit the Palace Museum in Cameroon, travel across the Sahara with the Tuareg, examine conflict resolution among the Bakongo in Zaire, learn about African technological sophistication, meet biologists at work in the savanna and discover the African influence in the Americas.