I had just started in my role as one of the Relationship Managers of the Rethinking Relationships project, and was thrown in at the deep end to organise an event in Liverpool and begin to reach out and make connections with Nigerian communities in Merseyside—all within two months. An exciting experience but daunting non the less.

The project team had decided to hold an event to publicise the project in Merseyside and to gauge the interest from a cohort of possible community curators to shape the nature of the project in Liverpool. The most exciting aspect of the event was to have our Nigerian partners give presentations and introduce visitors to themes or ideas on how they could be involved in the project. We are committed to bringing Nigerian expertise to Liverpool to help us all explore the collection, and hope those with expertise in Merseyside work with them in the future.

Dr. Omitola, a research associate at the museum, spent extensive time in the World Museum stores looking through the collections and identifying objects and themes she wished to pursue as part of the project and her talks, whilst Professor Ajala, from the University of Ibadan, had to rely on spreadsheets and object records shared electronically. Sharing images of the object with Professor Ajala was difficult due to the size of the image files, so we had to find other ways to share images. The project now has a private Flickr page which holds around 1000 images of Igbo & Yoruba objects which can be accessed by researchers in real time without needing to download large files. Professor Ajala was interested in how Yoruba God’s were stored in the World Museum, and so photographs were uploaded to the Flickr page showing how they are cared for, or perhaps not properly cared for, within the museum walls. Professor Ajala’s talk titled ‘Divine Diaspora: Yoruba Deities in Liverpool Museum’ was subsequently recorded via zoom to be played during the event.

Connections within the project allowed us to reach out to Chinelo Njaka, Ph.D who worked as a Community Action Researcher at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in southeast London. Her exploration of personal and social histories through Nigerian craft was designed to inspire others to engage creatively with the collections, and to demonstrate how an initial curiosity can lead to vast interconnected research paths through historical and personal discoveries.

I also designed some family activities with input from our partners who provided ideas, information and even a playlist of Nigerian music to set the scene! Both Chinelo and Omotayo are interested in textiles, which play a major part in West African life, so it seemed like a good idea to devise a textile activity. It was possible to handle an ‘Akwete’ cloth from the collection that is usually in storage but was made available on the day. Children, and quite a lot of adults, also wove their own paper textile while learning about the different meanings associated with specific colours and designs in Igbo and Yoruba culture.

Another activity was designed to highlight how little we know about some of the objects in the collection and think about how we could find out the things that interest us together. Finally, we asked visitors to draw on a case and take back the narrative by showing us what they’d like to see in it. The case currently shows how African objects inspired European artists, but we wanted to know what other stories we could tell. This case has been ring fenced for redisplay as part of the Rethinking Relationships project if participants want to curate a new display.

By far the most successful part of the event were the talks given by our partners. The space allowed the experts to talk about themes and ideas central to their work, and to critically examine objects from the stores presented on tables in front of the audience. Every time I passed through the talk space, it was a highlight to see visitors proactively engaging with our partners – debating, asking questions and sharing contact information. They were the key success to this event and their engagement has convinced community members to show interest in the project. I am in the early stages of following up on that interest and looking towards the next steps in shaping the work in Liverpool.

In the future we hope that these events could be shaped and curated by community partners within Merseyside. This time we needed to prove that we had something interesting to offer and demonstrate our commitment to equitable partnership working. If you’re interested in learning more about the Nigerian collections and working alongside our speakers, please get in touch! We are looking for more people to join the project.

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.