SA museums make a clean sweep in Africa
THE Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg has been named the Best Museum in Africa in TripAdvisor’s Traveller’s Choice awards for 2016.
The museum in the south of Johannesburg, with its moving and immersive displays that draw visitors in to the country’s fight for racial equality, is named in the top spot alongside a quote from a tourist, who describes it thus: “Sombre, moving, intelligent. The exhibits are thorough and hold nothing back. I was shaken by the experience but honoured to have been.”
And there’s more proud news for the SA tourism industry. It is, in fact, home to several other museums in the top 25 in Africa, including the Franschhoek Motor Museum (at no 5), the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch (no 6); the Heart of Cape Town Museum (10); Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia (12); the Hector Pieterson Museum in Orlando West, Soweto (13); the District Six Museum in Cape Town (15); the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein (17); and the Springbok Experience Rugby Museum in Cape Town (18).
The winners on the rest of the continent include the little-known Musée des Sources de Lalla Mimouna in Errachidia, Morocco, in second place.
Here, the curator is a local artist called Mr Zaid, who has built a traditional museum and art gallery focusing on the peoples of Morocco around some natural springs.
One of several rave reviews on TripAdvisor, from a New Yorker, says: “It is a cultural experience, guided by the owner Zaid, who takes you through his impressive personal collection of Moroccan culture.
“The visit is so enriching, ripe with unique pieces and passionate commentary, [that] I came out changed. A good, thorough, and truly fascinating journey through Moroccan life through the ages.”
Third is the Photography Museum of Marrakech.
In the global stakes, however, neither Africa nor the Middle East get a look-in on the list of the world’s top 25 museums.
The winner in that category is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
More commonly referred to as The Met, the museum is the largest in the US and is one of the most visited museums in the world.
Its permanent collection contains over two million works, stretching from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt to paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, plus a large collection of American and modern art. It took first place in the TripAdvisor list for the second year in a row.
The remainder of the world’s best list is as follows:
2. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
3. State Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace in St Petersburg, Russia 4. Musée d’Orsay, Paris 5. National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
6. National September 11 Memorial & Museum, New York City 7. Prado Museum, Madrid 8. British Museum, London 9. Acropolis Museum, Athens 10. Vasa Museum, Stockholm The winners were determined using an algorithm that took into account the quantity and quality of reviews and ratings for museums worldwide given by users of TripAdvisor and gathered over a 12-month period.