CURATOR'S STATEMENT
John C. McCall

When I began teaching about Africa, I turned to the hundreds of photographs I had taken as part of my dissertation research in Nigeria. I was frustrated to discover that, while I had many images of masquerades, dances, and thatched roofed huts, I had precious few representing the modern Nigeria I wanted to bring to the classroom. I realized that despite my training in critical theories of representation, I had unconsciously turned my camera away from the new architecture, urban sprawl, ubiquitous traffic, and countless artifacts of technological development that were everywhere in Nigeria. I had, in effect, continued to reproduce the image of a "traditional" Africa—an image I had internalized even while being intellectually aware of the fallacy of such a representation. Anthropologists and museums have contributed greatly to the construction of the myth of a culturally fossilized Africa. They now recognize a responsibility to critically address this issue. These new circumstances encourage experimental approaches to museum exhibition. Christey Carwile and I discussed this possibility when we traveled to Nigeria in 2000. We began collecting images specifically designed to disrupt what viewers have come to expect from an exhibit about Africa. This installation is the first product of this project. The images here are not presented as aesthetic objects in themselves or as exercises in photographic technique. This is a conceptual exhibit that is as much about providing viewers with a means to examine the assumptions and expectations they bring to museums as it is about the images themselves.