“Mali Magic,” by Google Arts & Culture, features 40,000 manuscripts that have survived the 10-month occupation and destruction of the city of Timbuktu.
Mali
Posted inNews
Illegally Trafficked Djenné Figurines in Boston Museum Will Return to Mali
The two terracotta works were missing essential paperwork and “raised red flags immediately,” the museum’s provenance curator told Hyperallergic.
Posted inIn Brief
Art Historians Are Using Cutting-Edge Medical Technology to Study Sculptures
Researchers at the Art Institute of Chicago, partnered with the UChicago School of Medicine, used CT scanning to discover a set of Malian figures were older and more unique than believed.
Posted inComics
Discovering Old Sketchbooks from Timbuktu
Old sketchbooks conjure up memories of the past that resonate today.
Posted inArt
Remembering Malick Sidibé, the Photographer Who Captured Modern Malian Life
The Malian photographer Malick Sidibé died on Friday in Bamako, Mali.
Posted inIn Brief
After Harrowing Rescue, Timbuktu Manuscripts to Go on View in Brussels
Sixteen original 15th- and 16th-century Malian manuscripts will go on display Friday at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, The Art Newspaper reported.
Posted inArt
Picturing Public and Private in Mali
POUGHKEEPSIE, New York — Malian photographer Malick Sidibé’s career-run of work, Malick Sidibé: Chemises, now on view at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, is an intimate and inviting affair.
Posted inNews
The Majority of Timbuktu’s Medieval Manuscripts Are Safe
On Monday, Hyperallergic reported that Islamist rebels set fire to two historic libraries in the Malian city of Timbuktu (a UNESCO world heritage site), just as French forces and the Malian army pushed them out. The rebels may have destroyed 2,000 of the Ahmed Baba Institute’s volumes of medieval-era scholarship, but there is some good news: many of the archives’ treasures had earlier been removed to private libraries and collections.
Posted inNews
Islamist Rebels Burn Libraries Containing Thousands of Medieval Manuscripts
Islamic rebels set fire to two libraries containing tens of thousands of historic manuscripts on their way out of Timbuktu on Saturday. The full extent of the damage isn’t known yet, but it seems clear that a good chunk of African medieval history has been destroyed.
Posted inOpinion
Music from the Sahara’s Cellphone Music Scene
LOS ANGELES — In places like the US and Korea, it can be easy to rely entirely on the internet. Upload something to Dropbox, download it to your server, let it live on the cloud. But in many parts of the world with unreliable or censored internets, people rely on USB sticks and SD cards to transfer information.