Conservation

In this section, we try to intertwine two sets of questions. Firstly, we are interested in the discourse, expertise and infrastructure which was/is required to produce and conserve the lion remains. Secondly, we aim at weaving these museum practices of maintenance and conservation within larger issues related to nature conservation. Indeed, a whole infrastructure and discourse has been built around African nature conservation since the 1930s, in the aftermath of the massive fauna decimation by hunters and colonialists from the 19th century on.

Interestingly, besides the killing of the lions, which is the main story in The Man-Eaters of Tsavo and Other East-African adventures (1907), Colonel H. J. Patterson narrates many other hunting scenes, the first one happening almost immediately after having set foot in the East Africa Protectorate (present-day Kenya). The connection between colonial hunting and contemporary conservation is made by one of the passers-by we interviewed for the initial sound installation: “If you want my opinion: We still have lions here. Our emphasis should have been on the living ones. We are not interested in the carcasses, we can leave that one for the Americans (laughs)”. Another individual points out: “Wildlife and animal conflict is still relevant today, where you find human beings are encroaching on their territory. There is still a lot of resistance, a lot of impact on wildlife, as we build more infrastructure.”

It is striking to see how similar the arguments are regarding the conservation of nature and the conservation of cultural objects (the field which we are more familiar with). In both discourses recurring ideas of saving, preserving, articulated by international organisations and agents, often go hand in hand with, or have allowed expropriation and the marginalisation of African expertise/experience on the matter. Yet, the connection between the two domains is rarely made: the lions of Tsavo, as both former living beings and today museum artefacts, can help join the dots between the two.