Curator Talk: Archival Silences and Critical Fabulation

Join us for a conversation about Belongings with co-curator Carlee S. Forbes and contributing writer Alana Joy Okonkwo, as they discuss the curatorial and writing process behind the exhibition’s interpretive labels. Together, they will reflect on how label writing can shape how audiences engage with African objects and the histories they carry.

Belongings explores the complex trajectories of historical African objects, tracing the many lives and meanings these works have taken on as they moved across continents and through various hands. Looking beyond traditional museum narratives centered on original use or makers’ intent, the exhibition reveals layered stories of early African owners, colonial-era collectors, secondary market exchanges in Europe, and the objects’ eventual arrival at the Fowler Museum.

Carlee S. Forbes is associate curator of African and Oceanic art at the Baltimore Museum of Art. She has previous experience at the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Ackland Art Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, and was previously part of the Mellon-funded research team at the Fowler Museum. Her research focuses on provnenace histories as lens for illuminating social, cultural, and political histories. Her curatorial practice speaks to redefining the art historical canon by making space for new narratives in collection holdings and exhibition texts while also advocating for community collaboration in care and display practices. Exhibitions she has curated or co-curated include: Ex-Change (2025), Particular Histories: Provenance Research in African Arts (2022), Evidence & Expertise (2016), Kongo across the Waters (2013), and the 2017 reinstallation of the long-term African art galleries at the North Carolina Musuem of Art. Forbes received her Ph.D. in art history from UNC-Chapel Hill and she is on the board of African Arts journal. She has published extensively on provenance and collection histories and is committed to training students in provenance methodologies, piloting the Fowler's transcription internship program and now serving as co-organizer for Denver University's Center for Art Collection Ethics's summer 2026 provenance training certificate program.

Alana Joy Okonkwo is a graduating senior at Stanford University majoring in Archaeology and Black Studies. Alana is a 2024-26 Voyager through the Obama-Chesky Scholarship for Public Service and received a Cardinal Quarter Fellowship in 2024 to conduct provenance research at the Fowler Museum. For her honors thesis, she is writing and illustrating a graphic novel that explores the provenance of three Congolese objects at Stanford, narrated from the imagined perspectives of the objects themselves. Alana is passionate about cultural heritage restitution and aims to support the return of cultural belongings to their original homelands, helping communities around the world preserve their histories and traditions.

Image credit: Unidentified artist(s); Tsesah, late 19th century; Bamileke style, Cameroon; wood, paint, plant fiber, plant gum; Fowler Museum at UCLA, X65.5820; Gift of the Wellcome Trust.