Paul Basu tells us about the background to the [Re:]Enanglements project and his work with the collections assembled by Northcote Thomas, which has fed into the recently opened Cambridge exhibition.
Northcote Thomas was Britain’s first colonial anthropologist and oversaw anthropological surveys in Southern Nigeria and Sierra Leone between 1909 and 1915. Thousands of objects, thousands of photographs, audio recordings and botanic specimens were collected as part of these expeditions.
Paul talks about the lives and changing status of these collections, his work to connect them with the descendants of people identified in the archives, the ways they illuminate the human condition and his hopeful view of these collections can be suggestive of forms of cosmopolitan identity.
The role of collections in defining and determining tribal identities in colonial terms is also discussed, as is Northcote Thomas’ engagement with people in West Africa, as well as his complex relationship with colonial authorities.
Finally, Paul talks about his approach to exhibition as experiment, his work with artists and the use of material metaphors as a way of thinking through issues of coloniality, decoloniality and repair.
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