How an African collection of art in Canada is celebrated with care and community

Qanita Lilla

A significant collection of traditional African art has had a home in Canada for almost a hundred years.

At Agnes Etherington Art Centre, we are working on new, more hospitable practices of care for this collection. This means that we are attentive to the unmet needs of the collection and are taking responsibility for responding to these in ways that encourage community access and inclusion.

We are located at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ont., on the territories of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat, in a city where over 7,000 people identify as First Nations, Inuit or Métis.

The African art collection, named after donors Justin and Elisabeth Lang, consists of approximately 600 three-dimensional pieces that originate from 19 West African countries.

This collection is part of a cluster of similar collections in North America that made their way via European art markets. In 1938, Elisabeth Lang (nee Von