THE DIGITIZATION OF IFE HEADS: MUSEUMS AND THE CHALLENGES OF REPATRIATION OF AFRICAN ARTEFACTS

ABSTRACT For the decade of years, the meanings and interpretation of artifacts that were taken from African culture including the Ife bronze heads have been produced and fixed by a team of western curatorial experts (Ciolfi, 2012). This museum practice has not allowed visitors and the people being represented in the case of the 'Ife bronze head' the real meaning and implications of the Ife bronzes according to the oral tradition of the Yorubas, they are yet to be given the amount of attention they deserve. The meanings and interpretations made by curators were drawn from the writings and accounts of earlier western explorers, travelers, and colonial officials whose culture affected how the Ife bronzes have been interpreted and perceived (Vogel, 1999). These interpretations and meanings are still seen in the framing of the Ife bronze heads that are exhibited at the British Museum Sainsbury African gallery. In this thesis, the Ife bronze heads are used as a case study to enlighten how digitalization enhanced its image through the British Museum in collaboration with the BBC Radio Program. In addition, in the thesis, I examined and analyzed the extent digitization has brought about democracy, education, and socialization in African arts. I argued about repatriation and its challenges as well as how digitization has been used as a form of repatriation of African art since some artifacts are still in the colonized countries and museums have failed to acknowledge the illegal looting of African artifacts. Digitization is considered as giving room for representing Ife bronze heads in a new light while allowing meanings with postcolonial ideology to emerge. Focusing on the pre-colonial era to the post-colonial era, this thesis explored the potential of digital representation. This thesis concluded that digital representation has the potential of initiating the decolonization of the Ife bronze heads through an inclusive participatory culture.