Lives Beyond the Label

Erica P. Jones and Carlee S. Forbes on Belongings, provenance, and reimagining the museum as a space of shared inquiry.

22 July 2026

At a moment when museums are reassessing the histories embedded within their collections, ‘Belongings: Changing Hands and Shifting Meanings in African Arts’ at the Fowler Museum at UCLA offers a compelling reframing of African art beyond fixed narratives of origin or ownership. Co-curated by Erica P. Jones and Carlee S. Forbes, the exhibition traces the shifting lives of objects across makers, markets, collectors, institutions, and communities, revealing how meaning is continually shaped through movement, exchange, and interpretation. Rather than presenting definitive answers, ‘Belongings’ embraces complexity, foregrounding provenance, critical fabulation, and multiple perspectives to challenge conventional museum authority. In this conversation, Jones and Forbes reflect on the layered histories of African collections, the responsibilities of contemporary museums, and how transparency, uncertainty, and collaboration can open new possibilities for understanding cultural heritage.

Erica P. Jones, Fowler Museum’s senior curator of African arts and curatorial affairs; and Carlee S. Forbes, Baltimore Museum of Art’s associate curator of African and Oceanic art

Brendon Bell-Roberts: ‘Belongings’ challenges the idea that museum objects have a single, fixed meaning. What prompted you to centre the exhibition on the objects’ changing lives rather than their original cultural contexts alone?

So often, museum narratives focus on the works’ original or intended use, and subsequent understandings, interpretations, or values fall to the wayside. However, as we conducted research from 2019-2025 as part of a Mellon-funded initiative, we saw instance after instance where new meanings stacked on objects as they moved between places and successive owners. These movements and shifts in meaning act as mirrors, reflecting and revealing the values and intentions of each new owner. With such a focus on provenance (histories of ownership) in current museum practice, we wanted to highlight that the methods used to study provenance also can reveal quite a bit about historical context.

The exhibition follows objects through makers, collectors, institutions, and markets. How does tracing these paths change our understanding of African art and the histories museums have usually presented?

Museums have often been viewed as pillars of truth presented by experts. Too often, there has been one accepted story about African art. In recent years, with histories of collecting coming more into public awareness, we see another perceived truth entering the conversation—prompting collections to only be viewed through the lens of violence and looting. Through this exhibition, we share layered, nuanced, and complex histories carried by each object. From the maker to successive users, owners, collectors, and museums, the object accrues further meaning, sometimes contradicting itself over time. The exhibition illuminates the impact movement has on objects and ultimately asks visitors to consider narratives beyond just original use to center stories that underscore the many roles that African art takes as it moves across the globe.

Colonial collecting practices shaped many museum collections. How does ‘Belongings’ encourage audiences to engage critically with these histories while recognising the knowledge and agency of the objects’ original communities?

This exhibition takes an intentionally critical look at the colonial collecting practices and the legacy of those means of acquisition. By underscoring the complexity of the motives for collecting and selling, we hope the visitor will come away with a better understanding of the period’s nuance. A key part of this nuance is underscoring the role of original communities, makers, and owners as active participants in an international art market. The emphasis on the agency of African individuals and communities in the histories of the pieces on display is essential to painting a much broader picture of the art market during this period as a global network with informed, active participants on both sides.

Rather than offering firm answers, the exhibition presents multiple perspectives and open questions. Why should museums acknowledge uncertainty when interpreting African collections?

As we have seen in much of the recent news, museums are not perfect. They have complex collecting histories and methodological shortcomings exacerbated by tangible issues resulting from a lack of funding and low staffing. The documentation and understanding of each object is never going to be perfect or complete, so why should a museum pretend it knows everything? We hope that the approach of providing multiple and varied labels for the pieces in this exhibition will encourage visitors to be curious and ask questions. To see the possibilities of what can come from looking at a work from multiple perspectives, considering the impact of an object’s movement, and encouraging creative thinking about the futures for each piece.

Provenance research and restitution have become increasingly urgent issues across museums worldwide. How does this exhibition add to these debates, and what responsibilities do institutions have beyond transparency toward meaningful action?

The Fowler is extremely privileged in that it is in a position to highlight and speak to the multiple lives of objects. A reality for many African Art collections, especially those in the United States, is that often the ownership chain stops at only the most recent owner or gallery. The Fowler’s African arts collection, much of it donated by the Wellcome Trust, is comparatively extensively documented with records going back to, at least, the early 20th century. By including complex provenance narratives for each work, we show the rich narratives that emerge when we have a more complete history. But then, as we show with the additional label texts, particularly those using “critical fabulation” (as a methodology that melds deep research and speculative fiction, even the most complete-looking record still has gaps. The critical fabulation texts challenge us as curators and viewers to look beyond the documentation and to imagine new paths with these objects.

The exhibition highlights how every object carries the imprint of the people and institutions that have shaped its history. How did this idea shape your curatorial approach to displaying the works and writing the interpretive texts?

Given the depth and complexity of the history of each piece on display in this exhibition, we made a point of utilising a design strategy that allows each piece to stand alone so that visitors can wholly focus on each piece individually. One gift of curating at a university museum is that we have the freedom to write longer label texts with the expectation of college-level engagement in the concepts. In this exhibition, the greatest challenge was finding a balance in the labels so that visitors came away with an understanding of the object, its history, and what that history tells us about the times in which it changed hands.

Many visitors encounter historical African art through museum collections outside the continent. What do you hope African and diasporic audiences will take away from ‘Belongings’, and how might the exhibition reshape conversations about ownership, memory, and cultural heritage?

Returning to an earlier question, I think that we are hoping that the emphasis on agency will resonate with African and diasporic audiences. It is also our hope that the clear-eyed discussion of the varied experiences of the colonial period will be well received. So many exhibitions of African arts focus on looting, dispossession, and extortive practices of the colonial period. These were, of course, widely experienced during the colonial period, but African communities and individuals also showed ingenuity and fortitude, and we hope that people will take away the sense of celebration of these acts as well.

As museums rethink their relationship with African collections, what do you hope ‘Belongings’ contributes to future curatorial practice, and what conversations do you hope it starts beyond the gallery?

It may be too pie-in-the-sky, but as a collaborative effort, drawing from multiple disciplines and presenting many perspectives, in many ways, we hope this exhibition breaks free from the idea that the museum holds all the answers and the expectation that a museum must always present a singular, assertive thesis. Rather, we seek to demonstrate the possibilities that emerge when we acknowledge shortcomings of a museum. We highlight how objects can change meaning over time (so singular story). We highlight complex power dynamics involved in the works’ movement. In being more transparent, we no longer hide these challenges behind a facade of truth. Through transparency, we hope that we can then invite visitors into our conversations, to take part in them, and (hopefully) become engaged and see possibilities for new museum futures.

This exhibition is on view at the Fowler Museum at UCLA until 20 September 2026.