As part of the aim to equip the new generation of Africans to be leaders in heritage management, Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA) has trained 527 students on careers in arts and heritage.
The nonprofit organization EMOWAA is an initiative to create a venue for learning, research, and exhibition as well as a workspace for artists, artisans, and academics. This is because there is a rise to sustain the West African heritage, craftsmanship, and modern arts.
EMOWAA will contain the rich, regal and sacred objects of Benin’s past, in a way that allows visitors into the visual landscape of imagining the once historic borders of a restored ancient kingdom.
The benefitting students were drawn from the University of Benin Demonstration Secondary School (UDSS), Federal Government Girls College (FGGC), Benin, Ogbe Junior Secondary School, Anglican Girls Grammar School (AGGS) and Phelim High School all in Benin City.
The Open Society Foundation in Africa provided funding for the career mentorship in the arts and heritage (OSF Africa). Ore Disu, director of the EMOWAA Pavilion, noted during the career program that competent curators, conservators, and archaeologists were in limited supply in Africa, particularly in nations like Nigeria. According to Disu, the EMOWAA Pavilion is actively striving to develop programs that will increase the chances for young people to receive training in and participate in the study, preservation, and expression of their history.
She described the EMOWAA Pavilion, a cutting-edge research center that is now being built in the heart of Benin City. She said that the 13 to 16-year-old pupils who benefited from the program received tutoring for more than 30 hours of in-class instruction and 16 hours of various extracurricular activities.
The students visited the EMOWAA Archaeology research site, according to the director of the EMOWAA Pavilion, where Olusegun Opadeji, a senior lecturer of Archaeology at the University of Ibadan, gave them a tour. She also mentioned that the pupils went to Enotie Ogbebor’s Nosona Art Studio, where they participated in pottery making under the guidance of expert ceramicists. “EMOWAA would not just benefit people in Benin City or even Edo, but should also expand to other young learners, educators and scholars across Nigeria and West Africa.
“We are working towards rolling out seasonal internships and volunteers opportunities. These interactions will bring important histories, archives and research projects to life for young learners,” she said.
About THE EMOWAA COMPLEX
The Edo Museum of West African Art will be a monument and home for the most comprehensive antiquities from West Africa. A civic and cultural space, the Museum will highlight, rediscover and preserve the rich history of West African culture and the heritage of the Benin Kingdom.
The Museum will sit at the cusp of the wider Creative District in Benin – an intimate campus within the ancient Bini Kingdom walls with platforms for display, interaction and commerce.
Its constellation of facilities will showcase digital, performance and visual art inspired by the rich local history and projecting its living culture into the future.
These installations will be curated by the first building of the Complex, the EMOWAA Pavilion – the main collections facility and a centre of excellence for research, digital programming and heritage management. The knowledge generated here will be expressed in dynamic outreach programmes, practical learning and in surrounding historic landscape.
