Leonor Faber-Jonker, An African Inheritance – A Rhodesian Life in Objects

In 2017, author & artist Leonor Faber-Jonker inherited a collection of dozens of objects from Africa: everyday objects, natural products, ethnographic artefacts, and corny souvenirs from (mostly) Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Rwanda, and Upper-Volta (Burkina Faso). The objects had belonged to her grandmother, a Dutch emigrant who lived on the African continent with her family between 1949 and 1965.

For her PhD research, tentatively titled ‘An African Inheritance – A Rhodesian Life in Objects’, Leonor will analyze the layers of meaning (past and present) of several objects from this collection relating to her family’s life in Southern Rhodesia (1949-1961).