Casa do Fernandez or Ilojo Bar was a National Monument in the heart of Lagos Island, Nigeria. It was built by the returnees who came back from Brazil to Africa, the homeland that the Transatlantic...Show moreCasa do Fernandez or Ilojo Bar was a National Monument in the heart of Lagos Island, Nigeria. It was built by the returnees who came back from Brazil to Africa, the homeland that the Transatlantic Slave Trade had taken their forefathers away from. Although it was a National Monument and should have been protected under Nigerian heritage law, it was illegally demolished on 11 September 2016. How could this prime example of Brazilian-style architecture have been destroyed in broad daylight? This thesis uses Casa do Fernandez as a case study to explore the challenges of preserving built heritage in Nigeria. In the process, it tries to figure out why there is so little knowledge about the history of a building declared a National Monument over sixty years ago. The story of the monument turns out to be different than always assumed. After researching the building’s history, the focus is turned to heritage: the way the present interacts with the past. Could the way Casa do Fernandez has been defined as heritage have something to do with its sad end? The thesis argues that the rigid definition of Casa do Fernandez as strictly Afro-Brazilian heritage detached the site of its cultural meaning to other groups in society and sowed the seeds of the eventual demise of the National Monument. It is a plea for a wider and more inclusive interpretation of this heritage-site in particular and of heritage in general.Show less
The main theme of the research consists in finding how multicultural identities of diasporic return migrants are actualized and expressed. Acknowledging the discursive nature of heritage, we can...Show moreThe main theme of the research consists in finding how multicultural identities of diasporic return migrants are actualized and expressed. Acknowledging the discursive nature of heritage, we can understand story-telling as a means to define one’s cultural identity. However, as language is tied to culture, we might consider a more universal form of expression that transcends cultural categorization to cease the multi-faceted and fluid identity of returnees. The following research attempts to establish art and visual representation as individual conscious or unconscious means of expression of cultural identity. This was illustrated on the hand of a case-study focused on a specific group of diasporic return migrants in Vietnam: the French Vietnamese returnee artists of Saigon . It was based on the analysis of the works of four French Vietnamese artists, locally defined as French “Viet Kieu” (“Overseas Vietnamese” in English): Sandrine Llouquet, Bao Vuong, Mai-Loan Tu and Florian Nguyen. In the first instance, the research process drew a contextual framework of Vietnamese society in parallel with the development of the Saigonese contemporary art scene to understand the experiences of the artists reported in their biographies in order to underline their relationship to Vietnamese heritage. In the second instance, ethnographic methods combined with their interpretive biographies informed an iconological study of their artistic production that identified potential expressions of their Vietnamese heritage in their work. Finally, the two approaches were combined in a synthetic exercise that helped drawing conclusions on the transmission of Vietnamese heritage and the general definition of the artists’ cultural heritage and identity.Show less
