Rethinking Relationships is a sector leading collaboration between MEG and four museums with world cultures collections: the Pitt Rivers Museum (University of Oxford), the Horniman Museum and Gardens, World Museum, National Museums Liverpool, and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (University of Cambridge). The project aims to develop and adapt museum practice to build trust with communities and improve access to collections with significance to them. Throughout the project, the World Museum Liverpool will be focussing on its Nigerian collections. The museum has a collection of over 10,000 objects from across Africa, but its West African collections are particularly strong. The museum cares for almost 2000 objects from Nigeria which reflects the development of Liverpool’s important maritime links with the western coast of Africa.

However, like many museums NML has struggled to create and maintain relationships with African communities in Liverpool, creating a perception that the museum is deliberately gatekeeping its collection. The museum has been accused of gatekeeping their West African collections as the only access communities have had to their cultural heritage has been in the objects chosen for display by a set of white curators in 2005. Rethinking Relationships is hoping to address this concern directly by creating access for community researchers and curators. We also hope to find ways to make sure that museums can sustain this work despite funding cuts and reduced staff numbers.

Before the start of the Rethinking Relationships project, Dr. Omotayo Omitola became an Honorary Research Associate of World Museum in May 2023. Dr. Omitola is an alumna of the University of Ibadan in Oyo State in the Southwest region of Nigeria, where she also taught courses in media and cultural theory. Having archived the digital collections at The Insitute of African Studies within the University’s Museum, Dr. Omitola put us in contact with Professor Aderemi Ajala, the Head of the Institute of African Studies, and the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Ibadan, and enter into an agreement to become a partner in the project.

We decided to focus on Igbo and Yoruba collections in the first instance because there is a long history of Igbo & Yoruba communities being active in Merseyside. For example, the Igbo Community Association was formed in 1935 in Liverpool and are deep routed in the culture, communities and history of Merseyside. This doesn’t mean the project will only focus on Igbo & Yoruba collections! If you’re interested in another part of Nigerian culture and collections, we would absolutely love to hear from you.

In 2019, the museum undertook a well-documented redisplay of its Benin collections. The Global Cultures team worked with five community curators to create a more inclusive and engaging Benin display that addresses contemporary concerns of people of African descent in Liverpool, in this case the violent colonial history which led to the British military overthrow of the Kingdom of Benin in 1897. The event which led to the theft and dispersal of the Edo Kingdom’s royal inheritance of commemorative altarpieces and other artworks around the world. Please have a look at this short video which documented some of the conversations involved in the redisplay.

Whilst the redisplay has been successful, World Museum’s role in the Rethinking Relationships project hopes to bridge the gap between its Nigerian collections and the communities it serves, and to assert that it is only due to lack of funds, rather than gatekeeping, that the Global Cultures team has been unable to undertake any substantial, long-term work with Nigerian communities in the area.

There will be much more to update on soon but if you are interested, please don’t hesitate to reach out and join us!

Contact us at rethinkingrelationships@prm.ox.ac.uk.