The exhibition includes a late 19th-century piece from Cameroon. (photo courtesy of the Fowler Museum)

The Fowler Museum at UCLA presents “Belongings: Changing Hands and Shifting Meanings in African Arts,” a permanent collection exhibition that examines how historical African objects have accrued a range of meanings as they passed through different hands, contexts and interpretations. On view in the Fowler in Focus gallery, the installation brings together works from across the African continent and traces their journeys from the hands of their original makers and owners to European markets and, ultimately, into the Fowler’s collection.

Organized by co-curators Erica P. Jones, senior curator of African arts and manager of curatorial affairs, and Carlee S. Forbes, associate curator of African and Oceanic art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, “Belongings” reconsiders how museums present and interpret historical African objects. Rather than focusing solely on original use or aesthetic qualities, the exhibition foregrounds the layered trajectories of each work – acknowledging how colonialism, collecting practices and museum systems have shaped what we know – and don’t know – about their pasts.

“Every object in this gallery has lived many lives,” Jones said. “By tracing their paths through makers, owners, collectors and institutions, we reveal how meanings are never fixed; they’re constantly being reshaped by movement, exchange and context.”

Divided into four sections – African makers and owners; European tokens of empire; the market for African arts in Europe; and arrival at the Fowler Museum – the show challenges the notion of a singular, authoritative museum narrative. Visitors are invited to explore multiple perspectives through gallery handouts and digital resources, which underscore the idea that every museum object contains multitudes.

“This exhibition asks visitors to see beyond the confines of a single museum label,” Forbes said. “By including many voices in the gallery, we hope audiences will see how different disciplines approach objects. Asking many questions speaks to histories and knowledge far beyond the arts and serves as starting points for conversations in disciplines typically thought to be far afield from the museum space.”

The presentation also highlights the Fowler Museum’s foundational 1965 gift from the Wellcome Trust, which transformed the museum’s trajectory and established a base for ongoing provenance and restitution research.

“Belongings: Changing Hands and Shifting Meanings in African Arts” is made possible by support from the Mellon Foundation and reflects years of collaborative research conducted between 2019-25.

The Fowler Museum is located at 308 Charles E. Young Drive.

For information, visit fowler. ucla.edu.