Sheep magazine archive 1: issues 3-9

70
The entrance to the exhibition is through
the library’s gift shop, which already makes
it feel as though you are undergoing a
back-to-front process of transformation to
reach another space, a secret passage to
another realm. Once inside the first section,
‘Building States,’ you are confronted with
a video loop of Sidike Diabate and his
ensemble performing the Manding Sunjata
epic; its timeless quality reminds that this
region had prominent empires that stretch
back at least 2500 years. A bit further
along, we’re given a chart that breaks
down the wheres and whens of the imperial
equation, with the Ife and Benin kingdoms
rubbing shoulders with the Wolof, Asante
and Oyo empires, and the Sokoto caliphate
established at the tail end of the slave trade.
There are troubling reminders of the trade
itself too, in the form of slave trader Jean
Barbot’s 1678 text, Journal of A Voyage
to Guinea, but we’re also treated to some
incredible artifacts, such as a 120-year-old
sheet-brass box from Ghana, which clearly
shows the figure of Anansi on it, as well
as some protective amulets of the Quadri
Sufi order. There are also some massive
atumpan drums from Ghana, used to
deliver the king’s messages to the people,
which anthropologist Robert Sutherland
Rattray recorded one Kofi Jatto playing on a
field trip in 1921.
SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 6
Griot Soussou, a griot (musician and
storyteller) with his kora. Photograph by
Edmond Fortier, a French photographer
who spent nearly 30 years working in
West Africa