Expo Afrique (pages expo) GB

Travelling exhibition
Available for regional organizations
and cultural associations throughout Europe.

Africa
techniques and memories
(Catalogue of the exhibition)

"Africa" at Rethymnon (Crete)

The European Bell Institute conceived this exhibition, entitled :
Africa "techniques and memories"
as a study of the role of bell-related objects
– all idiophones – in the vast family of instruments of African music. It also looks into the iron or bronze production techniques which perpetually engendered diffident acquiescence on the part of the blacksmith or founder as to the aesthetic and emotional quality of each unique piece among those most representative of ancestral rites. How can one resist, in fact, the pureness of a Lega mask, the elegance of a Yoruba divining horn, an ancient clock-face of the Ife kingdom ?

The approach, precise as to identification
and eclectic as to the choice of objects,
along with the disquieting discovery of the same apotropaic functions in the African bell
as in the European bell, both of which are linked to the primary rites of protection and group affirmation, make of this exhibition an interesting teaching tool. In addition it responds to the objective of the European Bell Institute which is to familiarize the general public to
this bell heritage which proves itself time
and again universal.

In this exhibition, the most common objects are found next to the most precious and the most rare.