Nottingham Contemporary museum and Kafou Models

For professional studies we visited The Contemporary Museum based in Nottingham city centre at the lace market. This Museum was based on voodoo and the ceremonies perfumed through animal sacrifice.

The artwork that I saw was of a spiritual theme, this included artwork, models, film and worship flags.  The artwork was based on an evil spirit; certain colours with the work represented this. Many of the pictures had a sense of death within them; the killing of chickens, goats and monkeys showed this. This was seen to be as a ritual. The models that were on display were made from a selection of material that has been washed in from the sea. The general public would normally have seen this as litter but these artists made good use of the material and created the models presented in the museum. The nature of the models comes from the belief that spirits could engulf the statue and live within it. The film was of a ritual that included animals being sacrificed; as this is what they believed would bring back the spirits from the dead. This certain ritual was performed on a boat but it could happen anywhere with a field of spirits present. The worship flags were also involved within the film, people would pray and hold the flags meaning that they had a high importance to the people around.

Overall I did not like this museum because I find animal cruelty wrong which put me off from the start and therefore I did not enjoy the exhibition because of this. Although I was put off, I did like the fact of believing theres life after death as shown by the Kafou models which spirits were believed to have lived in after sacrifices were made.