Google today launched Mali Magic, a digital treasure trove which aims to preserve and showcase Mali’s historic and contemporary art and culture.
Together with its local partners Google Arts & Culture identified four key pillars of Malian culture – manuscripts, music, monuments, and modern art – and worked closely with local communities and experts to digitally document the country’s rich art, architecture, scholarship, and musical tradition, and to share stories of its resilience in the face of political struggles with the world.
Google Arts & Culture also worked with artist and musician DJ Spooky (Paul Miller) to create short videos to explore the evolution of storytelling, from West Africa to the American blues. An original album, Maliba, by Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara, produced in Mali and written about the country’s cultural legacy, was created exclusively for the project. The collection also contains a wealth of videos and imagery which capture Mali’s contemporary art scene and profile some of its artists.
Organizations working in partnership with Google Arts & Culture on the Mali project include:
Highlight content available in the Mali Magic project:
- 40 000+ assets digitised manuscript pages
- 50+ exhibits on Mali heritage – manuscripts, music, monuments & contemporary art
- First ever Street View capture in Mali of 9 heritage sites
- 3D model and annotated tour of Djenne Mosque
- 1 music album, Maliba, by Fatoumata Diawara
SAVAMA – Manuscript Digitization & Curation – which aims to preserve and enhance the Timbuktu Arabic manuscripts that constitute the Islamic cultural heritage of Mali, Africa’s collective memory and part of the world’s heritage.
Timbuktu Renaissance which aims to leverage Mali’s and Timbuktu’s heritage and living culture to promote peace and prosperity
UNESCO, which has published two stories of its efforts to reconstruct mausoleums and ancestral heritage sites targeted during the conflict,
Instruments 4 Africa a non-profit organization committed to cultural preservation, I4A supports artists to keep their practices alive so they can continue to empower their communities
Brooklyn Public Library, which hosted the launch FacebookTwitterEmailShare
