The second Research visit by artist Michelle Eistrup to the Museum of Ethnography - the first was in February 2016 - to study and capture objects from the Bakongo people in the two Congo States. In connection to an ongoing art project Ntanga Zuzu - Re-Uniting Us (All Suns Forever - Re-uniting Us), Eistrup explores in particular powerful objects called minkisi and niombo. During the first visit several objects were filmed in front of bright, colourful fabrics on a rotating surface. During the second visit, additional photographs will be taken.
Eistrup writes about All Suns Forever:
"I have for several years been researching for and working on an art installation and film called Natanga Zuzu – Re-uniting Us (All Suns Forever, Re-Uniting Us). This piece will reunite artefacts, across Scandinavia and Germany, to stories and people in the Southern United States, to Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean and to Kongo/Angola in Africa. Natanga Zuzu will try to unite these different environments and make the hidden meanings of these connections more visible and whole. One point of departure, is in ethnographic collections, where I wish to re-contextualize the Bakongo Niombos and Minkisis of the collection, and link the hidden meanings and belief systems already existing in these artefacts to the larger Diaspora of the African Atlantic. Another part of my research has its focus in the Geological museums and their mineral collections from Congo/Angola. These two types of collections enable me to experiment with beauty, landscape, layers/engraving and the connection to land and placement through the body and its gestures."
(Michael Barrett 2020-04-14)
Important to know about the information in the online collection database