This talk traces the emergence, spread, and eventual decline of modern ivory carving in the town of Bolobo on the Congo River. It investigates the conditions under which this new craft economy emerged, the exponential growth it experienced in the 20th century, and its eventual decline as a consequence of international regulations on ivory trade. Key to this history of both objects and people is an understanding of ‘making’ as a creative, as well as an economic, cultural, and social practice in which regimes of value meshed with (post) colonial social codification, economies, and labor. Processes of making shaped the encounter between communities and colonial structures and helped determine the lifespan of the colonial cultural economy but were acts of self-realization that reveal a shared imagination of global consumer cultures.

Der Vortrag findet im Rahmen des von Peter Probst geleiteteten Kolloquiums zur Kunst Afrikas statt.

Interessierte Gäste sind sehr herzlich willkommen!