Saturday 13 February 2010

Exhibition Marks Torday-Congo 100 Years Expedition

Archie Bonka contributed to this report



The exhibition to commemorate the 100 years of Hungarian anthropologist, EMIL-TORDAY, started on Friday 5th and is expected to last until the beginning of March at the Muzeum of Ethnography in downtown Budapest.

The opening ceremony which attracted dignitaries from the Hungarian society feature the writings and some photographs that Torday took during his Congo expeditions.  

The exhibition is the result of another expedition recently taken by three Hungarians in August last year in an effort to trace and recover some of Emil Torday's artifacts when he sojourned to that continent at the beginning of the 20th century.

Included in the exhibition gallery are the photographs, videos, documents and objects assembled during the expedition in the summer of 2009.  

The aim of the exhibition, according to Ildikó Szilasi, the curator, is to acquaint the public with the opus and achievements of Torday and to show the public the cultural processes and social phenomena taking place in the Congo nowadays.

Torday made three expeditions to the Congo River Basin between 1900 and 1909 making friends among the local whom the Belgian colonizers had callously described
as "savage and primitive". 

 
It was gathered that Torday approached them with love and respect.
 

Written by Hakeem Babalola

The exhibition is opened to the public between 06.02-28.02 from Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm. Between 01.03-04.03 the Museum is opened from 10am to 8pm. Address: Museum of Ethnography, Kossuth Lajos square 12.