Explorations of origins introduction.

This special issue of African Arts features highlights of a symposium held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 7, 2003, in conjunction with the exhibition "Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture." By combining a survey of artistic traditions from across the continent with a case study of the Bamana tradition of ci wara in all its complex diversity, the exhibition attempted to provide a sense of the breadth of the continent's legacy of reflections on origins and these reflections' dynamic adaptation to social change over time. The "Genesis" symposium, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, sought to provide multidisciplinary perspectives on Africa's heritage in relation to ideas of origins, and offered a shared point of departure for commentaries on the larger significance of the exhibition framework and its works of art. On that occasion a distinguished panel of Africanists in the fields of philosophy, paleoanthropology; history, art history, cultural anthropologgy, religion, archaeology, and literature were joined by two leading contemporary artists.

During the period that I was developing the "Genesis" exhibition, my own thinking about the theme of origins and its relation to art in Africa was expanded by news coverage of startling discoveries at the site of Blombos Cave, situated at the continent's southern tip. Over the course of excavations there, archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood uncovered bone artifacts engraved with abstract motifs and pieces of iron oxide mineral ocher used for body decoration 70,000 years ago. These finds were considered to be the earliest records of efforts by modern humans to express themselves aesthetically and conceptually in visual terms. Earlier this year, researchers at Blombos Cave announced the further discovery of perforated shells, 75,000 years old, that might have been strung like beads and worn as jewelry, underscoring concerns with aesthetic expression. The more we learn about our origins and development, the more the ties with Africa as the ultimate cradle of all human ancestry and creativity are reinforced.

In perhaps the most dramatic quest for origins to date, scientists in recent years have probed the formation of the universe itself. NASA's Origins program uses space- and ground-based observatories to research and analyze the origins of the cosmos. Just this year, exciting evidence for the Big Bang theory, as announced in media headlines, heralded the unveiling of new chapters in the early history of our universe. Our indefatigable drive to define ourselves and the world we inhabit has now afforded us an increasingly refined portrait of its composition and the process whereby we came into being. It almost defies the imagination that images of the very creation of our cosmos, now known to be 13.7 billion years old, have been captured and recorded. Compiled by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, these visual documents have been characterized as the most detailed and precise map of the universe just after its birth.

In his book The Fossil Trail, Ian Tattersall, one of the symposium panelists, notes that "interest in our own origins dates back to a time well before anyone realized we had a fossil record, or even an evolutionary past. Indeed, every human society has its own origin myths, reflecting the need for self-explanation that seems to be so deeply ingrained an aspect of the human psyche." Around the same time that "Genesis" was on view at the Metropolitan (November 19, 2002-July 6, 2003), a special exhibition co-curated by Tattersall was presented across Central Park at the American Museum of Natural History. "The First Europeans: Treasures from the Hills of Atapuerca" (January 11-April 13, 2003) afforded an overview of many of the landmark finds that have chronicled modern man's development in Africa and his journey beyond. That exhibition provided the literal pieces of the puzzle that have been pieced together to arrive at a genealogy of our species. The subtlety of the fragmentary relics of ancient hominid fossil evidence was astonishing. The installation made apparent the constant play between evidentiary remains and the creative imagination required to conceptually situate them in the world as it was tens of thousands of years ago. This was reflected in the relatively small particles of bone integrated into plaster reconstructions of crania as well as artistic representations that further fleshed out their subjects as living beings. In this issue, Tattersall's contribution (p. 18) provides an overview of how we came to be human in Africa by developing a capacity for symbolic expression that has set us apart as a species. In doing so he provides a framework for appreciating man's earliest known material creations.

A society's account of its origins is in a way an autobiography. Art historians and curators draw upon a vast body of research in order to contextualize especially distinguished human creations in ways that allow a fuller appreciation of aspects of their underlying significance and the worldviews to which they relate. A worldview, or philosophy, combines religious, social, political, and historical dimensions. For that reason it is especially appropriate that the "Genesis" symposium speakers who have contributed to this issue represent a spectrum of complementary insights. The philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah launches our reflections with insights into the larger significance of overarching frames of reference that define our place in the world (p. 26). The historian John Thornton emphasizes that contrary to characterizations of origin myths as immutable, these accounts are creative and continually evolving (p. 32). He presents evidence through Kongo and Lunda case studies that have been subject to frequent revision in response to political developments and contemporary needs. The art historian Suzanne Blier comments on several African artistic traditions represented in the exhibition and related scholarship concerned with accounts of origin (p. 38). Like Thornton, she sees these metanarratives as highly responsive to specific social realities. Enid Schildkrout, an anthropologist and museum curator, and a discussant at the symposium, considers Dogon children's artistic projections of an ideal of Dogon culture to the world at large (p. 46). She relates recently documented drawings by Dogon youth to Western theories of children's forms of expression as an avenue for discovering that which is most deeply ingrained in a culture.

In precolonial Africa, epic traditions and histories invoking origins were performed as oral traditions. A poet and professor of literature, Abena Busia provides her own perspective on ideas of origins as they have been expressed in her poetry and that of other Diaspora authors (p. 54). Busia's contribution considers the intrinsically hybrid nature of all human identities and describes the creative process in terms of its attempts to assimilate many seemingly contradictory traditions.

Inspired by seminal ideas relating to their personal beginnings, the sculptors of the contemporary works in the "Genesis" exhibition themselves have engaged in the creative act. Sokari Douglas Camp and Alison Saar, both symposium panelists, have closely examined and seriously studied African sculptural traditions and mined different aspects of their formal and conceptual content in their own work. In exhibitions at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles; the National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.; the British Museum, London; and the American Museum of Natural History, New York Sokari Douglas Camp has shown her contemporary sculptures with traditional Nigerian Kalabari masquerade forms that relate to her heritage. Alison Saar, whose work is featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Modern art installation, has presented an exhibition of her own sculpture together with traditional Luba art from the Democratic Republic of the Congo at UCLA's Fowler Museum of Cultural History (curated by Mary Nooter Roberts). The work of artists like Sokari and Saar ensures that traditional art will continue to serve as a point of reference and inspiration for contemporary art and by so doing will revitalize and engage Africa's artistic legacy in contemporary artistic practice. In this issue the works they presented at the symposium, together with their commentary, accompany the texts by Appiah (p. 26) and Busia (p. 54).

Finally, the visual tour de force of the "Genesis" installation in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing was the assembly of forty-two exceptional Bamana ci wara headdresses, presented as an iconic sculptural genre inspired by ideas of origins. Appreciation of these works was expanded through full costume ensembles and film footage of performances. Given this celebration of the dynamic and vital nature of one of Mali's seminal forms of expression, it was especially meaningful that Samuel Sidibe, director of Mali's Musee National in Bamako, spoke of the current state of his institution and plans for its future. He noted that twenty years after the museum's inauguration in May 1982, a major structural renovation and expansion has been completed, and renovations in the permanent installation are in progress as well. The original facility's permanent exhibition gallery, 200 square meters in size, did not allow for adequate representation of the length and breadth of Mall's heritage. Neither could the existing special exhibition gallery of comparable size accommodate international presentations; mounting the 1994 "Vallees du Niger," for example, required closing the permanent installation. According to Sidibe the renovation doubles the size of the special exhibition space, which will now be devoted to the contemporary art of Mali, Africa, and the world. The climate controlled and expanded permanent galleries will feature three installations with different emphases: textiles of Mali; Mali of the first millennium; and masterpieces of Dogon, Bamana, and Senufo ritual art. Sidibe emphasized that the expansion was envisaged to meet the needs of both Malian and foreign publics and to revitalize the museum's role as an essential tool for promoting contemporary and ancient Malian heritage in all its diversity.

The symposium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was remarkable for the interdisciplinary nature of the dialogue, which brought together a broad spectrum of reflections on the theme of the "Genesis" exhibition. For that reason the articles here depart somewhat from the usual offerings of this journal. I am pleased that this issue will provide a permanent record of the especially rich and thoughtful contributions of the participants on that occasion.