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Museum Preview: Carnegie exhibit brings to life African cultures and history
Thursday, February 08, 2001 By Adrian McCoy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
There's no better way to celebrate Black History Month than to go to the source. The traveling exhibit "Africa: One Continent, Many Worlds" paints a multifaceted, rich portrait of a continent, its cultures, history and people.
WHEN: Saturday through May 13
WHERE: Carnegie Museum of Natural History
INFORMATION: 412-622-3131 or www.carnegie
"Africa: One Continent, Many Worlds" was designed to give people a deeper understanding of Africa and its people. An impressive gathering of artifacts is complemented by a host of interactive exhibits and multimedia displays, with maps, models, videos, audio and written materials.
The "Community and Family Life" exhibit highlights life in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, showing what life in a modern city is like during a Muslim holiday. Exhibits show the importance of hospitality, how people dress for the occasion and what they eat. A display case contains a kora, a stringed instrument, and an accompanying video shows a man playing one.
"The African Ecology Tour" explores the continent's landscape. Exhibits on the Rift illustrate how it was created by shifting continental plates, and offers a look at how the continent might look 30 million years from now. Critical conservation issues are explored, including the threats to land and wildlife like gorillas and rhinos.
The "Commerce" section looks at the economic importance of the nomadic Tuareg people of the Sahara, who cross the desert and transport goods from trading center to trading center, and who believe that "houses are the graves of the living." There is a replica of a furnished tent -- a household that can be dismantled and moved in a couple of hours.
No history book could have the impact of standing in the re-created slave ship, which is the entrance to the "Diaspora" section of the exhibit. Surrounded by darkness, with only a shaft of light coming from above, the visitor hears recordings of first-hand accounts of people who crossed over the ocean and into slavery. Other exhibits in this area show posters for missing slaves and take the visitor to a slave auction. One display calculates what these workers would have been able to do -- buy land, feed and clothe a family -- if they had been paid for their work.
Other exhibits follow the history of Africans in the New World, tracing the path to freedom, the blossoming of African-American culture in this country, and the many contributions made to the American economy and culture.
"Art and Society" is housed in a separate climate-controlled area because of the fragility of some of the artifacts. Here there are examples of clothing, leather garments and saddlebags, brass and metal tools and art works..
"Africa" is a must-see educational experience for children: the Pittsburgh Public School system will be sending all 7th graders to see this exhibit, and interest is strong from other school districts as well.
For younger visitors, there's an Earth Theater show -- "Koi and the Kola Nuts" that accompanies the exhibit. This "Rabbit Ears Radio" production follows the odyssey of Koi, the son of an African chief. It features the voice of Whoopi Goldberg and music by Herbie Hancock.
"Africa: One Continent, Many Worlds": Saturday through May 13 at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Information: 412-622-3131 or www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh.
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