Technicians search, among collections and archives, the invisible treasures of Afro-Colombian memory. After this diagnosis of collections, they will begin to search among the collections of the other museums of the Ministry of Cultures and other institutions such as the National Library, the General Archive of the Nation and other institutions of the Ministry of Cultures to see what it could contribute. and be exhibited in , the first of its type of state initiative in the country. This is just one of the tasks of a project that began in 2021 and is about to see the light of day in 2026 in Cali, the second South American city with the largest Afro population, after Salvador de Bahía, in Brazil. Although in Colombia there are more than 4.6 million Afro people – 9.3% of the national census – in the history of the republic and in some of its cultural institutions.
of Colombia, spreads out the plans for the future headquarters on a table in his office in Bogotá. This year, renovations will begin on building six of the old Licorera del Valle complex, which should be completed in December. will invest 15,000 million pesos (about 3.36 million euros) to prepare a structure that includes a semi-basement, a first level and a mezzanine where pieces and other cultural manifestations of Afro peoples will be exhibited. These will initially come from the archives of state institutions, from loans from community initiatives, from donations or acquisitions.
“Although this is a state initiative, the Afro Museum has been a historical claim of the communities. They had looked for a space for memory, historical review and reparation in the fight against racism,” says the artist, curator and cultural manager. Before taking over as director of the museum in April 2024, Angulo had been co-curator of the Afro Museum project. He had also dedicated part of his career to researching the representation of Afro peoples in museum and archive collections.
The Afro Museum has been a historical attraction for the communities. They had sought a space for memory, historical review and reparation in the fight against racism
Liliana Angulo Cortés, director of the National Museum of Colombia
For this reason, he knows well that before the Government began the project, in various corners of Colombia there were already community initiatives to preserve the memory of the first Africans who, during the colony, were kidnapped and brought to the port of Cartagena, to the north. country, to be marketed as . The project, explains Angulo, has mapped some 83 museums, places of memory or cultural projects in all corners of the territory with which they are working in a participatory process to create the Afro Museum. For this, the Afro Museum team traveled to , they held co-creation laboratories in several cities and now, in December, they convened in Bogotá the First Meeting of Afromuseological Initiatives, a meeting with representatives of 33 community projects to network. “They are people who have the animal of the museums and they have worked to ensure that memory is not lost,” explains Angulo, although he admits that some have moved forward with difficulties.
A collective project
The Simankongo Museum, located in the township of (Bolívar), in the Caribbean, was on the verge of being left without a physical headquarters after more than 20 years of work. Simankongo began in 1999 when Antonia Cassiani, who worked in the health sector and made home visits to elderly patients, was alerted by the elderly that some of the typical objects of their culture were ending up in the trash. “They told me that Palenque was being transformed, that their houses were being demolished and their cash was being thrown away,” Cassiani says by phone from San Basilio de Palenque, considered the first town of free Africans in America. Cassiani began receiving objects from his patients and storing them in the patio of his house. He collected a huge artisanal pylon used to hull seeds and grains, jars, totumo tableware, canvas beds and mats, vestiges of the past of his town founded by maroons who had rebelled against the slave system.
I wanted that when my children were born, they could know all the ancestral knowledge
Antonia Cassiani, promoter of the Simankongo Museum
“I wanted that when my children were born, they could know all the ancestral knowledge,” says Cassiani. In 2019, he won a scholarship that allowed him to open the museum in a typical Palenque house, with bahareque walls — a cane structure covered in mud — and a palm roof. However, a year ago, the owners of the house demanded the rent from them and they were left without a headquarters. Cassiani found another traditional house, somewhat smaller, and at the end of December “Here I speak to him, from the door of the museum, in the Arriba neighborhood, waiting in case someone passes by,” says Cassiani, who is now struggling to position the new headquarters in the Palenque tourist guides map. “And the Afro Museum of Cali? I imagine it with sections or spaces that represent each of its Afro populations, with their knowledge,” says Cassiani.
“If we don’t do this collectively, it doesn’t work,” says María Yovadis Londoño, also by phone call, from Montería (Córdoba) before leaving for the municipality of San José de Uré, where 30 years ago she built the Alto Community Ethnopedagogical Museum. Saint George. “We communities have to be owners and part of the process, because it is not about handing over knowledge there and having others manage it,” adds the professor at the San José de Uré Ethno-Educational Institution, another palenquero territory founded by Afro-descendants rebelling against slavery. In that school, in 1995, a change in the school curriculum began to bring children closer to their African identity.
There was so much enthusiasm among the community that the grandparents began to bring typical objects with which they explained to the children the ancestral knowledge of singing, dancing and traditional medicine. Everything was kept in a classroom until they managed to create a small museum. There is such a quantity that six temporary exhibitions can be organized a year and two permanent exhibitions maintained, according to Londoño.
From Bogotá, the director of the National Museum assures that the future Afro Museum will be articulated with community initiatives. “We don’t compete with them. On the contrary, the idea is to make them visible and strengthen them,” says Angulo and warns that, once the stage of acquiring pieces and collections arrives, work will be done to make it a “respectful and ethical” process that involves the communities. “We propose that the collections of the Afro Museum be built progressively from the Museum’s own transfer and development in dialogue and in a joint effort with the different black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal communities. [pueblo afrocaribeño] and palenqueras in the country,” says Angulo.
While that moment arrives, the National Government is doing the math because the budget for 2025 of 523 billion pesos (about 115,000 million euros), presented by the Executive of President Gustavo Petro, . Since the accounts do not add up, cuts are planned in several Ministries, including that of Cultures. Although the Afro Museum has already secured the resources for the remodeling of the headquarters in Cali, it is still uncertain how much money it will have for the rest of the project. “It can change the scope of what we can achieve. All institutions in the cultural sector are going through a critical moment,” acknowledges the director of the National Museum.
