By Andrew Mulenga
As mentioned in the
last edition of “Mulling over Art”, the Copperbelt Museum, which was officially
opened on Buteko Avenue in the Central Business District of Ndola in in 1978, has
been earmarked for expansion for years.
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Copperbelt Museum of Science and Technology |
At the proposed new site
on plot/stand number 2865 near the Mufulira Roundabout in Ndola, will be called
the Copperbelt Museum of Science and Technology. It will comprise a large
complex of several structures including a five star hotel with a 300-bed space
capacity.
The facility will
feature a Science gallery, Technology Gallery, Walk through Mine Experience
Gallery, Outdoor exhibits, community interaction spaces, a food parlour that
exclusively serves traditional foods and refreshments from the 10 provinces as
well as a crafts market with handicraft personnel working on site.
According to the Copperbelt
Museum Director, Victoria Chitungu the new museum is expected to host Zambia’s technical
and cultural heritage and serve as a nature conservation site. The museum is set
to give visitors hands on experience in both traditional and modern technology
heritage as well as provide educational tours.
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Copperbelt Museum Science Centre building designed by Ministry of Works and Supply |
Speaking in an interview
from her office in Ndola, Chitungu outlined the challenges of operating from the
current constrained space, and gave thoughts around the importance of museums,
highlighting the plans for the new museum.
“When we moved here in
the 1970s it was meant to be a temporal space, but to date we are still here,
so it is almost impossible to expand. Everything that we want to do hinges on
expansion. We have so many programmes on hold,” she explained.
Chitungu promptly went
on to explain the importance of museums, even in a fast changing world, with
emphasis that museums have more value now than ever before.
“The value of museums
in today’s society is twofold. First, Museums give you a sense of pride in that
they remind us about the positive side of our past. Second, Museums can give a
country direction, they are reference points. If you have no reference of the
past it is hard for you to make decisions for the future,” she contended.
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Copperbelt Museum Traditional Food Parlour designed by Ministry of Works and Supply |
In reference to the
current museum, Chitungu bemoaned the dwindling number of walk-in visitors and
researchers and appealed to the public to take an interest in learning more
about their heritage especially when the opportunity was at their doorstep. She
complained that although Zambian museums charge very little, they still do not
get enough visitors because perhaps the culture of visiting museums has not
been inculcated into Zambian society.
“We also need to see
more schools visiting museums. Why not use the (current) space as a classroom
outside the classroom. In fact, if the education structure of learning was
attached to museums, I think we would be doing much better,” she said “In most
countries, museums are directly attached to universities and other learning
institutions, but in Zambia this is not the case. I think this needs to
change”.
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Indigenous Knowledge Centre |
She reasoned that it
seems that museums are places where people go to pass time, but what they do
not know is that museums can also be seen as a sanctuary as they are not
political or religious spaces.
“We want members of the
public to use the space for their own exhibitions, like bankers, they can come
here and display a history of banking in Zambia and so on,” she said.
Although it happened 13
years before Chitungu’s tenure, a notable example of such an intervention is
the Lechwe Trust Collection exhibition in 2006. With much fanfare at the grand
opening, Lechwe Trust pitched a huge marquee (tent) blocking the traffic along
Buteko Avenue in what ended up to be a remarkably successful exhibition of modern and contemporary Zambian art.
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The Museum Hotel |
The said event was
officiated by the Bank of Zambia Regional Deputy Governor. Such high profile
individuals and spectacle, Chitungu stressed, are important for bringing
awareness and to attract the public to museums.
“Let us say if people
who are high up in society like the Bank of Zambia Governor or even His
Excellency the President, if they visit the museums, it raises the profile of
the institutions, it puts value on them,” she suggested.
And sifting through a
10-page document that was presented at a stakeholder and investors meeting
organised by the Copperbelt Investment Expo on June 12, Chitungu seemed
confident that on her teams part they had already set the ball rolling.
“This year I asked the Ministry of Tourism to
help us with the construction of toilets because the artists (craftsmen) have
no problem working in the open. We just need two toilets for women and two for
men, just in case the project takes longer to kick off, these are not
expensive,” she said. “When it comes to the new museum, we want to look at
technology in broader terms, for instance, what technology goes into the
weaving of baskets or the making of clay pots”.
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The new site is near Levy Mwanawasa Stadium along the Ndola-Kitwe dual carriage way |
“We also want something
that will reflect all the provinces and we will be doing workshops to preserve
these indigenous skills. We want crafts that are unique and specific to the
various provinces. This will also curb the influx of crafts and curios from
neighbouring countries even from far-flung places like Kenya”
A visit to the proposed
site with Chitungu revealed that truly, there was adequate space for craftsmen
to take up activities even before the first brick of the museum buildings are
laid. It is under the enjoyable shade of a large Mukuyu tree near the location
of the suggested ecological park that is also the source of the Kansenshi
stream.
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The site for the proposed ecological garden is also the Kansenshi Stream |
Speaking of the
ecological park, Chitungu asserted that when the Museum is operational, an
ecologist will be employed permanently and visitors will have the opportunity
to learn about the environment, ecosystems, biodiversity and conservation. The
park will comprise herbal plants, reptiles, fish species, antelope and
traditional resting spaces called “Insaka” in Bemba.
“It is now the Ministry
of Tourism’s baby, since the ministry is now talking about diversification,
diversification does not get better than this,” said Chitungu.
Chitungu announced that
the project was also available for Private Public Partnership (PPP) and that
that it was a bankable project on which investors, other than the line
ministries should come on board. She emphasised that the site is along a
touristic route, that incorporates the Levy Mwanawasa stadium and the new Ndola
Airport along the Ndola-Kitwe dual carriageway and that it was the fastest
growing side of the city.
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Acting director Victoria Chitungu (seated) with Assistant Admin Officer Martha Ikabongo-Kaira |
BRIEF
BACKGROUND
According to a document
made available by Chitungu and signed by former Director, Charity Salasini, the
designs for the new museum were produced by the Buildings Department of the
Ministry of Works and Supply, between April and October 2015.
They are based on a
Conceptual Frame dated March 2015, derived from a Feasibility Study Report of
October 2006, which was conducted by a team of Museum Experts.
In April 2015, a team
of experts from the Ministry of Works and Supply, Buildings Department
Headquarters also conducted a Feasibility Study and the new site was officially
granted by the Ndola City Council.
It was later appealed
that the National Museums Board consider and approve the project in order to
set the pace for the commencement of the development of the Museum.
OPINION
AND SUGGESTIONS
The new museum project
sounds and looks brilliant; it is surely the way to go. One has to agree with
Chitungu that it is on a site with great potential, surrounded by shopping
malls, neighbourhoods, learning institutions, suburbs, hotels and an
international stadium.
However, at this stage
we can only trust and obey that the project will be undertaken in our
lifetimes.
Nevertheless, apart
from the indigenous technology or knowledge systems often described as
witchcraft, Zambia has a very rich heritage in terms of science and technology;
hopefully it will be adequately documented in the new museum.
Take for instance the seemingly
unendorsed Zambian Space Project, considered comedic by a British ITN News crew
(1964) and some unenlightened Zambians; it is something that should not be
forgotten. If not for the boldness of its pioneer Mukuka Nkoloso, it is a
statement of fact; a Zambian did have the ambition of flying to the moon and Mars
competing with the USSR and the USA in the 1960s.
In fact Nkoloso may
also be read as a champion of women empowerment in that his intention was to
send not a man but a young woman Martha Mwamba into space—well along with a
cat.
Whether he will be recognized
as an oddball or eccentric, one thing for sure is that he was a nonconformist.
At present, he has inspired a generation of Zambian creative practitioners whom
in recent times have continuously referenced him in their work.
Among them is the award
winning writer and academic Namwali Serpell who wrote of the Zambian Space
Programme for the New Yorker in 2017 as well as this year in her book entitled
“'The Old Drift”. Mwenya Kabwe, an academic and playwright, while teaching at
the Wits University in South Africa created a theatrical piece titled Astronautus Afrikanus, inspred by
Nkoloso. Artist, Stary Mwaba’s 2014/15 exhibition’s ‘Going
To Mars’ at the Lusaka National Museum and “Life on Mars” with KfW Stiftung at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin,
Germany were both inspired by Nkoloso.
While still on Nkoloso, it is worth noting
that his visions put him in the spotlight even years after his attempted moon
mission. One such example of his recognition is a newspaper article published
as far away as Blytheville, Arkansas, (USA) in 1970. The “Courier News” a local
newspaper, ran a story titled “Support Your Witch Doctor, Zambian Says” by a
Kenneth L. Whiting. Whiting wrote: “Nkoloso recently submitted a report
suggesting witchcraft as an antidote to Christianity, which has debased
Africa’s medical skills. He also blamed British colonial rule for using
missionaries and the Bible to outflank witchcraft.”
Other aspects of Zambia’s
technological advancement was the electric vehicle manufactured by ZESCO, a show
car at first, it could later be seen doing service rounds in the late 1980s. It
is only now that the in the so-called developed countries electric vehicles are
catching on, when apparently Zambians had been doing it in the 1980s. If it did
not end up on a pile of scrap metal, the ZESCO Electric car or at least its
blueprints should be displayed at the new museum.
Zambia’s rich
automotive engineering heritage, which also includes the assembly of Land
Rovers, Peugeots and Fiats, should also be featured. What’s more, the Fiat plant
once produced a car with two steering wheels that could drive both ways. Zambian
engineers at Phillips Electrical experimented with solar energy,—which is only
now becoming popular—in the early 1980s.
As farfetched as it may
sound, last year, Sela Kasepa a 21-year-old Zambian Harvard undergraduate in
the field of “Computer-Aided Machine Design” organised and entered some Zambian
high-school learners into an international robotics competition, the first
Global annual student robotics Olympiad in the USA. She certainly deserves a
spot in the new museum, she is a pioneer and she is also from the Copperbelt in
ChaChaCha, Kitwe.
All the above mentioned
and many more deserve their own corner to be remembered and studied in the
museum in any which way they can, whether through photographs, videos and sound
as modern museums do.
Then there is the issue
of modern and contemporary Zambian art, which seems to be overlooked in the new
museum project. Yes, the craftsmen have been considered and the designs show
what looks like a huge mural, but the Conceptual Frame of the museum does not
appear to incorporate a section specific to modern and contemporary Zambian
art. Not even the ecological park that would look great with a few stone
sculptures by talented artists appears to be on the cards. It is as if museum
authorities cannot distinguish between handicrafts and contemporary art.
The Copperbelt has
produced innumerable Zambian artists. Work by all these artists can be rotated
in a particular gallery with the latest works by upcoming artists. Especially
that the province does not have a decent gallery space. A section of this new
museum would be ideal as a space for a Copperbelt Museum of Contemporary art
that tackles technological themes.