Behind thick earth-toned walls in Benin City, a small team of Nigerian curators and researchers is carefully piecing together fragments of the country’s past.
According to economist.com, the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), an exhibition space and research institute, rises on land that once formed the royal heart of the historic Benin Empire — a site layered with centuries of artistic, political and cultural memory.
From recovered artefacts to archival research, the institution is designed not just to display history, but to actively investigate and reinterpret it. Its mission reflects a broader movement across Africa to reclaim narratives long shaped by colonial-era displacement, positioning MOWAA as both a cultural landmark and a living laboratory for West African heritage.
In 1897 Benin City, as the metropolis in southern Nigeria is now called, was razed by the British; 129 years later, MOWAA’s archaeologists and scientists are busy probing the earth below. Curators are preparing high-tech storage rooms for the sculptures, manuscripts and other wonders that MOWAA is waiting to receive.
