Biography
Kolawole Gbolahan (aka Kola) is a Nigerian by birth who resides in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a Mellon scholar with an MA in Music and is currently a PhD candidate at the College of Music, University of Cape Town. His work explores ideas around the redefinition of musical instruments, how these culturally symbolic materials should be conceptualised as objects beyond objects, the significance of prioritising their primary function within the framework of cultural conservation and archival curation. Further to this, the work considers how space is socially produced and how this conception of space informs knowledge production within the boundary of a physical place, and the politics of access to these places. He explores and argues for these ideas in his ongoing Doctorate thesis, "An Applied Ethnomusicological Approach To The Curatorial Process Of Musical Instrument Housed in the Kirby Collection".
Synopsis
The idea here is to reimagine the objective of collections and museums beyond their display of material objects; secondly, to broaden the focus of cultural conservation beyond solely preserving the material integrity of their collected objects. Here, we challenge these narrow objectives and performatively argue for one that contributes further to the knowledge systems and the social significance of material objects housed within the ideological and physical frameworks of these institutions. Through a live digital radio broadcast from the "Kirby Collection of Musical Instruments" situated at the College of Music, UCT, we will curate a listening session and informed auditory experience of musical instruments housed in the collection. This is equally a curated performance of the sonic and a lived curatorial approach to bring together audiences both digitally and in person (i.e., music/other students at UCT, as well as ICA festival attendees. Thus, within this sonically produced social space (that is both digital and physical), we are able to tap into other ways of engaging musical instruments housed in collections. Ways that amplify our imagination of these sound producing material culture beyond static objects hung on walls or trapped in narrow ideas of the indigenous.
We can only reimagine by engaging questions, by seeking to explore further, such things as: objectives, frameworks and normative concepts, hence I invite you to engage the following with me. What is a musical instrument? What is the primary function of a musical instrument? Why do we curate them, and whom do we curate for? Is there, or can there be a more informed purpose of instrument collections/ museums other than the display of objects? When we engage the objective of cultural conservation and its material preservation, specifically of musical instruments, should this be limited to the material integrity of these symbolic objects? Or should/ or can this be inclusive of such things as their sound and the cultural traditions they are significant to? On whose terms should these instruments be preserved, historically within the context of museums/ collections, who and what factors have informed what is deemed as valuable about these instruments?
The decision to broadcast this curated performance of the sonic from the Kirby Collection has been carefully considered due to the significance of this archive in both contested and informed ways. It is a collection with unique and irreplaceable assembly of more than 600 musical instruments indigenous to Southern Africa which were collected by Percival Robison Kirby between 1930-1934; evidencing the rich musical heritage of the region. The collection also includes a small section of instruments from other continents, notably Asia, and Western Europe. Due to these factors, this collection and musical instruments housed within it have become central to the above questions this work intends to engage and the reimagined curatorial ideas it seeks to demonstrate. In addition, the ICA festival attendees and students at UCT (either connected to the broadcast digitally or physically present for it), both these classes of attendees get to be informed about this musical archive and its irreplicable musical heritage.
