Meroe (Sudan), North Pyramid Group, 2016

This site highlights the current research of Raymond Silverman, Professor Emeritus of History of Art, African Studies and Museum Studies at University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). As a historian of visual culture, my research explores the historical and contemporary visual practices of Africa, especially Ethiopia and Ghana. I am particularly interested in the migration of objects across space and time and and how material knowledge shapes societies. In the field of critical museum and heritage studies, I have been considering museum and heritage discourse in Africa, specifically how local knowledge is translated in national and community-based cultural institutions. In addition to academic projects, I have curated a number of exhibitions dealing with the arts of Africa, especially Ghana and Ethiopia.