In theory, museum visitors are the ideal film audience. Museums encourage giving time and imagination to meditate on experiences lived by humans elsewhere. We enter museums to give attention to organised fragments of earthly life on display. They are a place to reflect on the passing of time in all directions. They encourage thinking about not just the past, but also what we will choose to remember in the future, and on the act of remembering as an intentional, collective activity. These are all themes that the practice of filmmaking is well-suited to exploring.
Making the film
So I was excited to make a documentary for this project. I learned that a lot of people were involved in the Horniman’s project of returning ownership of the Benin artworks.
Communities of artists, students, heritage authorities and everyday people living in Nigeria were involved or stakeholders in this process, as well as others in diaspora like myself affected by the news. There would be lot to consider within a 5-minute video. As a result I wanted to develop a narrative that could anchor the film and offer a visual that would never leave your mind after seeing it, reminding you of all the work of this redisplay and why restitution is so important in the first place.
References and visuals
I settled on a core visual with a child. There were two references for this decision: the 1966 film ‘Black Girl’ directed by the great Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, and a 2021 video for the song ‘Open The Gates’ by Irreversible Entanglements, directed by Cyrus Moussavi.
In both these projects there are sequences of young Black children moving through environments in ways that defy inhibition and look to the future. In ‘Black Girl’ it is a moment where a Senegelese boy silently follows a tourist French man, while holding a traditional mask. As he follows the man, there is increasing tension, the adult increasingly fearful, due to his guilt in this scene.
In ‘Open The Gates’ a young boy in a Spiderman costume explores freely through the landscape of NYC, drawing on walls and climbing park railings.
I wanted to shoot a sequence of a child roaming the Museum, watching the Benin Kingdom sculptures from behind glass, then eventually setting one free. I wanted this sequence to be something that would give an anchor to the layers of information shared in this film. I was glad to bring this to life with gifted young actor Etinosa, who is of Edo heritage.
Another highlight was interviewing contributor Osaru, the artist who has created a new bronze piece, now displayed just beside our film’s screen in the World Gallery.
Osaru’s interview at the Winchester School of Art offers her perspective as someone trained in bronze casting techniques. Speaking directly to camera, she counters the perception that ‘Benin bronzes’ held in Western museums represent one-dimensional works from unknown or passive origin.
Shooting her sculpture in progress, I got a glimpse of the detailed work of bronze casting. Furthermore, I learnt from Osaru how the artworks of the Benin Kingdom make up an alive heritage that Edo people today engage with materially, spiritually, and creatively.
The 1953 documentary-essay ‘Statues Also Die’, directed by filmmakers Alain Resnais, Chris Marker and Ghislain Cloquet was another key reference on the project.
I found useful this film’s premise that post-colonial European museums have treated African art as ‘dead’ pieces of history rather than art with nuanced meaning and function. I was inspired by the film’s approach to quick montage editing, ‘animating’ the artworks shown, and the way it cuts between perspectives across continents.
Collaborating with a cinematographer, Josh, meant that we could use many tools of photography and lighting to shoot the Benin artworks vividly, with some moving shadows. Warm light captures their fine details. With a liberated approach to editing, the film intersperses footage from Benin City, shot by Nigeria-based videographers PAJE & Associate. This footage attests to the surviving presence of the Benin Kingdom within contemporary Nigeria.
All this has resulted in a documentary that I feel is well suited to being watched in a museum environment. I think the more time you spend with the film, the more it can encourage meditation on the Kingdom of Benin, its art, its living stakeholders in Edo land and all over the world, as well as the importance of African cultural heritage being reclaimed by Africans today. I am proud of the work, and grateful for all the collective effort that made it possible.
The Benin Kingdom Display was made possible using public funding by Arts Council England.