Museum Field Trip

One day where we didn’t have any interviews planned, I went to see the Museum in Bobo. 

 

There were two rooms – one is contemporary art from a competition held every few years, and one is traditional art. I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures inside, so unfortunately I can’t show you. But I can tell you that the modern art was awesome (and those of you who know my feelings on MoMA will be shocked to hear me say that). Some of it was batik paintings that had incredible detail (and each was accompanied by a brief explanation from the artist). There were some really neat mixed media pieces too. Then there were bronze and wood sculptures, too.

The traditional art room had some pictures of the Bobo people in the early 1900s ( pictures were dated from 1900 to 1930 as I recall). It also had some samples of different traditional cloth-weaving styles. There was a collection of traditional masks that were pretty neat, as well as traditional sculptures.

After that, the guide took me outside to tour two replica houses.

This one, in the regional reddish color sand-mud-stone, is a traditional style village house. We even went inside, and climbed up to the second story, so I could get a view from the balcony. The tree trunk out front is a ladder to the top, but, well, I'm older than I used to be, and I don't need to break anything in a foreign country.

This one in straw is a tradional Peul house (they’re a nomadic people, scattered throughout a number of countries).

 

He also took me behind the museum to the stream to get a look at the sacred fish of Bobo-Dioulasso. He threw chunks of bread to get the fish to come up. I have no idea what kind of fish they are, but they were long and seemed black (or dark at least). You aren’t supposed to eat them, what with them being sacred and all.

Not sure if you can actually see even their shadows in this picture:

 

But here’s what the little ledge overlooking the stream looked like:

 

Also the museum gives a lot of artists workspaces back here. There were lots of sculptures and other works in progress, and I stopped to take a picture of this musical instrument. I don’t know what it’s called, but it sort of looks like a sled-xylophone. The maker was busy cutting the tops off the gourds to get the right acoustic, because the gourds get attached under the bars to create the resonance. It was neat to hear him working, because even though the instrument was so unfamiliar, tuning is universal. It was like an alternate universe piano-tuning of sorts.