My introduction to the art of Sierra Leone went something like this: Despite the overwhelming presence of African headpieces in the worlds' museums, the masquerade tradition is not widespread across the continent. Of the limited regions in Africa where performances requiring wooden mask headpieces were and are practiced, it is generally a performance of men. Only in West Africa does a different tradition of masked dance take place, where women in Sierra Leone and Liberia are the primary singers and dancers in masquerade as well as the wearers and commissioners of their sculpted wooden masks (Phillips 1978: 265; Boone 1986; Lamp 2014). Among the Mende, Temne, and their neighbors, adults belong to organized societies—the Poro for men and the Sande (Bondo) for women—both of which serve as powerful political, social, and family entities.1 The Sande society organizes and hosts the women's masked performances, which are...
The Missing Women of Sande: A Necessary Exercise in Museum Decolonization
Susan Kart is an assistant professor at Lehigh University with a joint appointment in the Department of Art, Architecture, and Design and the Africana Studies program. Her research focuses on Senegalese art of the independence period and the exhibition and display of African art objects. She has curated exhibitions of African art at Smith College, Lehigh University, and consults for the Allentown Museum of Art. She has published in Critical Interventions, Third Text, and Visual Resources. [email protected]
Susan Kart is an assistant professor at Lehigh University with a joint appointment in the Department of Art, Architecture, and Design and the Africana Studies program. Her research focuses on Senegalese art of the independence period and the exhibition and display of African art objects. She has curated exhibitions of African art at Smith College, Lehigh University, and consults for the Allentown Museum of Art. She has published in Critical Interventions, Third Text, and Visual Resources. [email protected]
Susan Kart; The Missing Women of Sande: A Necessary Exercise in Museum Decolonization. African Arts 2020; 53 (3): 72–83. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00539
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