THE MUSEUM OF IVORY COAST CIVILIZATIONS

The National Museum of Abidjan was created in 1972. It is quite modest despite its large unexhibited museum collection: it has only one large room with thematic dependencies. Its original vocation was to present the independent Ivory Coast in its cultural diversity. In 1994, it was renamed the Museum of Civilizations of Côte d'Ivoire (MCCI) at the initiative of Professor Georges Niangoran-Bouah, a great intellectual figure of the country. This collection is a precious testimony of the tangible and intangible heritage of the country, a true living memory of the Ivorian and West African culture and history. The father of the Senegalese nation, Léopold Sédar Senghor, a connoisseur of the subject, considered it "one of the richest museums of negro art in the world".

This museum has had an eventful history: the national treasure has suffered. Looted in March 2011, it remained closed for nearly two years, awaiting rehabilitation. At that time, nature had reclaimed the institution's 2.5 hectares of land, and the roof of the building, gutted by a shell hole, still bore the scars of the Battle of Abidjan, during which the equivalent of more than 6 million euros worth of (120) priceless pieces had been stolen.

It was on July 21, 2017, on the sidelines of the eighth Games of the Francophonie then held in Abidjan and after 20 months of intensive work, that this cultural phoenix was truly reborn from its ashes. The first exhibition (visible from 2017 to 2019), deliberately named "Renaissance" presented a selection of a hundred masterpieces of the MCCI. The Abidjan museum, itself a work of art with its 20 carved wooden pillars, now looks great and meets all international requirements in terms of presentation of works, scenography of exhibitions and conservation conditions (light, air conditioning, security of the pieces...).

With its beautiful garden dotted with colorful contemporary works and planted with century-old trees of rare and therapeutic species, its exhibition rooms divided into six areas (archaeological, contemporary, Akan, Krou, Gour and Mande), its specialized library, its store, its patio, its conference space and its restaurant, the Museum of Civilizations of Côte d'Ivoire has become a real living space.

Today, the MCCI has a museographic collection of 15,000 pieces covering a period from the Upper Paleolithic (10,000 BC) to the 21st century. Ethnographic, archaeological and iconographic objects. These diversified works, representative of all regions of the Ivory Coast, are grouped into several categories: masks, bronzes and statues, weapons, ornaments and attributes of power, weights to weigh gold, musical instruments, carved doors, royal and chieftaincy furniture, textiles, everyday objects and agricultural utensils, without forgetting objects that bear witness to the slave trade and colonization, such as slave restraints. The permanent collection has been redesigned and inaugurated in November 2019 under the name "Pride, Symbols and Identities", in a more modern approach. It's a shame that so few pieces are on display given the richness of the collection. The MCCI also organizes temporary exhibitions (see the Facebook page).