The Manza Xylophone Project

The project 'ReSoXy: Re-Sounding the xylophone collection of RMCA' focuses on the music practice and intangible cultural heritage of the forgotten and declining musical instrument collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Africa Museum), Tervuren. The project is studying the xylophone collection, which includes 159 instruments of different cultural origins, constructions, and musical sounds. Collected by ethnographers, colonial administrators, and expeditors, the RMCA has acquired over 9,000 musical objects and 37,000 musical recordings from Central and sub-Saharan Africa since the end of the 19th century. We will reflect together on the contemporary meanings and roles of the cultures and instruments that were erased and fragmented by colonization through co-creation activities, leading to the development of new ideas on the restitution and decolonization of ethnographic museum collections.
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