Continental Collaboration: Consulting, Institution Building, and Mentoring Across Africa

Abstract

Other essays in this issue sketch the range and depth of Doran H. Ross's research on Ghanaian arts, his enormous role at the Fowler Museum, and groundbreaking exhibition projects developed during his tenure. Beyond all that, Doran also put his prodigious energy and intellect to work in another arena: working with diverse organizations and programs to strengthen museum and heritage institutions on the African continent and to provide opportunities for colleagues there through workshops, consulting, and mentoring. After consulting in the early 1980s, this work began in earnest in 1986 with the five-year Joint Textile Collection and Documentation Project, a collaboration between Mali's National Museum and the UCLA Museum of Cultural History (as it was then called) that Doran launched with Claude Ardouin, Philip Ravenhill, and Rachel Hoffman (Hoffman, this issue). Developed from a 1984 workshop on textile conservation coordinated by the West African Museums Project (WAMP), with ICCROM and the National Museum in Bamako, the project's emphasis on partnership with African museum colleagues and on the primacy of African museums’ needs and goals were fundamental principles throughout Doran's work. The textile project also marked the start of Doran's more formal engagements with WAMP and WAMP projects.WAMP was established in 1982 by Doran's close friend and colleague Philip Ravenhill, under the auspices of the International African Institute (IAI). Working across Anglophone and Francophone countries in the region, with a largely African board of directors, WAMP sought to stimulate museum development, promote good museum practice (in research, documentation, preservation, and dissemination), and build regional links among museums and connections with colleagues, institutions, and sources of support outside Africa (Ardouin 1990: 4).2 Supported by the Ford Foundation and later also by Rockefeller and Getty Foundations, WAMP held important workshops and conservation training and offered project grants and support that, among other things, “rehabilitated irreplaceable photograph collections, sponsored archaeological excavations and heritage preservation, documented and created databases for traditional art, craft, and technological processes, and trained museum professionals to respond effectively to conditions of war and natural disasters,” often in partnership with other international organizations and institutions (Wimpee 2019). WAMP became an independent NGO in the early 1990s, changing its name to the West African Museums Programme, and continued its notable success in working multilingually and bringing colleagues together across the West African region.Doran consulted on early WAMP projects in 1989–1990, through IAI and the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments Workshop for museum directors held in Jos on Developing a Curatorial Vision (Fig. 1). He was also involved in workshops in Gabon, Ghana, Togo, and Benin through USIA and ICOM. Doran joined WAMP's board of directors in 1993, during Claude Ardouin's directorship, and served until 2000, through most of Alexis Adandé's directorship (Fig. 2).Annual board meetings in Dakar were full days, reviewing WAMP activities and plans and assessing proposals for project grants submitted by institutions throughout the region. Central to WAMP's ethos were the African leadership, governance, and direction of the organization, always seeking to develop sustainable expertise that could be shared to nurture museum work in West Africa and create ongoing, accountable funding streams. According to fellow board member John Mack, Doran was always working in the background to establish WAMP's financial security, ensure foundations would have confidence in WAMP's meticulous administration, arrange US visits that might be needed, and support African colleagues and institutions.During Doran's time on the board, WAMP organized a series of regional symposia that resulted in influential books: Museums and Community in West Africa (Ardouin and Arinze 1995), Museums and Archaeology in West Africa (Ardouin 1997), Museums and History in West Africa (Ardouin and Arinze 2000), and Museums and Urban Culture in West Africa (Adandé and Arinze 2002). Each combined case studies and practical experience from across West Africa, seeking ways to support museum professionals and “rethink the role of museums in Africa, to make them more relevant to our societies” (Ardouin quoted in Wimpee 2019). Over the same period, WAMP developed directories of museum professionals and photographic archives in West Africa (Fall 2001) and supported various specific projects. During its thirty-five-year span, WAMP's activities, support, and networks were transformative for museums in the region. Doran was a keen participant in developing and implementing WAMP's work and in helping to develop sustainable support.Archaeologist Alexis Adandé remembers that when he became executive director,Though annual WAMP Board meetings were long, intense days, Doran nonetheless managed to pack in other work as well. One evening John Mack went to Doran's room in their small hotel to find it chock full of things Doran had been buying, including a CD vendor's entire market stall from Dakar's back streets. “He was always thinking ahead for future exhibitions, buying popular culture,” Mack recalled.4 Such imaginative acquisitions made for dramatic exhibition installations at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, even if they might create conundrums about how to transport them from Dakar to Los Angeles.As Doran was beginning work with WAMP, another significant program was taking shape through the SSRC/ACLS Joint Committee on African Studies. The Committee launched the African Archives and Museums Program (AAMP) in 1991, through efforts by Christraud Geary, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Tom Lodge, with Ford Foundation funds. Given his collaborations with African colleagues and museums, Doran joined AAMP's selection committee along with colleagues from Botswana, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. AAMP sought to “strengthen and invigorate … archives and museums in Africa” by supporting activities that conserved or collected significant but endangered materials; documented, cataloged, and displayed special holdings; and broadened public access and support for museum and archival resources (Lodge 1991: 24). “The idea behind it was to abandon the hegemonic approach of institutions in the geographic north and have professionals in African museums and archives speak to and educate each other, rather than bringing in consultants from overseas.”5In its first year, AAMP received ninety-five proposals from archives, museums, and universities in twenty-nine African countries (Anon. 1992). At annual meetings in Senegal, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere, AAMP's Committee reviewed applications and made vitalizing project grants to institutions across the continent—from microfilming material in the Archives du Centre Aequatoria, Zaire, to a mobile museum in Namibia, to conserving and managing ethnographic collections at Madagascar's Musée de l'Université d'Antananarivo, to inventorying and conserving materials in Benin City, Nigeria, to projects in Kenya's National Archives and Lamu Museum, to workshops and training seminars in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.In preparation for AAMP meetings, Doran and Chris made site visits to consult with grant recipients, assess project progress, visit potential applicants at other museums and archives, and listen to suggestions for AAMP (Fig. 3). These trips also included exploring regional museums, galleries, artists, and studios. In 1995 AAMP's final conference convened all grant recipients in Harare to discuss projects supported and learn from one another. That gathering was one of AAMP's last, as Ford funding ended in 1996 and the program with it. During its five years, AAMP made dozens of grants, helping museums and archives conserve, catalogue, and exhibit cultural and historical resources and broaden their constituencies and roles as centers of humanistic knowledge (Anon. 1994: 100). As part of AAMP's selection committee, Doran was instrumental in encouraging applicants and making this support available.Chris Geary has fond memories of working with Doran on AAMP, particularly their site visits. In her words, he never seemed to rest—up early in the mornings and late at night, recording the day's events in his diary. After their official visits, during the few hours without scheduled events, Doran followed his passion for shopping in local galleries, markets, and artist cooperatives, discovering interesting works for his own collections and for the Fowler Museum at UCLA (Fig. 4). Wherever he went, he attracted attention, because he was gregarious and jovial, engaging people in conversations. Chris appreciated his approach, which literally opened doors and the hearts of many African artists and vendors he met.During AAMP travels and in many other projects, Doran engaged in another passion. Whenever possible he took pictures, building a formidable body of documentary evidence informed by his keen eye, technical expertise, and love of Africa (Quick and Berns, this issue). Chris shared the photographic interest and recalls moments when both were taking pictures (with permission from those in the frame).6 Although many of their photos depict the same occasions, their angles and approaches differed. Tall Doran's images were frequently taken from above, while Chris, much shorter, often framed hers from below. Occasionally she handed Doran her camera for his viewpoint on a scene; he gladly obliged.Several archives with photographic holdings received AAMP seed grants and implementation grants; these were among the institutions Doran visited. By the 1980s, scholars had also recognized the repositories held in photographic studios operated by local practitioners, with holdings of decades of negatives and photographic prints. By the 1990s, these collections had become endangered due to digital photography's arrival, the establishment of commercial photo labs, and European collectors eager to buy them up. Thus, Doran and Chris never missed an opportunity to inquire about local studios and ask permission to see their photographs and interior studio settings (Fig. 5). These were short, preliminary visits in the hope of expanding AAMP to safeguard these significant repositories of personal, social, cultural, and political history and preserve them in African institutions. When AAMP ended in 1996, these expansion ideas remained unfulfilled.In the 2000s, Doran was a wonderful interlocutor and mentor for fellows in the Institutions of Public Culture program (IPC) that I directed with Ivan Karp at the Center for the Study of Public Scholarship at Emory University, from 2000–2008. A collaboration working across cultural institutions in South Africa, with a steering committee there coordinated by Leslie Witz, the IPC partnership with CSPS/Emory brought research fellows and student fellows from African countries to Emory for residencies; student residencies included graduate coursework at Emory and summer internships at various museums and cultural institutions. IPC also held annual interdisciplinary workshops in South Africa. Doran and Betsy Quick participated in the 2004 Workshop in Cape Town, Identity Documents: Images and Imagination in Public Culture.Doran visited Emory several times during IPC years, making presentations and once spending a week in residence as Emory's Distinguished Africanist. He also visited for events associated with the Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity exhibition and community research, for which I was local curator (Fig. 6) (Quick, this issue). While visiting, Doran participated in our works-in-progress seminar on South African Public Culture and advised students and research fellows alike on their projects. Invariably, after visiting Doran would send boxes of Fowler publications for the fellows, invaluable resources that significantly expanded their libraries.The Fowler also became the internship home for 2003 Student Fellow Qanita Lilla, an art history student who had researched collections history at the South African Gallery and worked on District Six Museum projects. Qanita had an enormously fruitful time, working in the education department with Betsy Quick, attending exhibition planning meetings, receiving proposal writing training with the Fowler's development officer, and discussing her projects and career possibilities with Doran throughout the internship. A number of IPC Research Fellows also made their way to the Fowler to continue conversations with Doran when they traveled in the United States.For over three decades, even as he developed dozens of innovative exhibitions and publications, continued long-term research, and built collections at the Fowler, held ACASA offices, chaired ACASA Triennial conferences, and edited journals, Doran Ross dedicated himself to building and sustaining African museums and heritage institutions; to engaging with, mentoring, and providing opportunities for African colleagues; and to forging and nourishing networks and partnerships that could contribute to those goals. His work with WAMP, AAMP, IPC, and the Mali Joint Textile Collection and Documentation Project were all part of Doran's long-term commitment to museums and colleagues in Africa. Doran inevitably brought to this work his generosity of spirit, incisive intelligence, expansive experience, creativity, thoughtful curiosity, and irrepressibly playful manner, amplifying effects of the support each project and program provided for individuals and institutions over the years. George Abungu's comment that starts this essay continued: Doran “developed immediate relations with people he met and worked with from the moment one met him. His contribution to the development of museums, archives, and professionals, especially capacity building and confidence building will always be felt.”