Ngaire Blankenberg
South African curator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ngaire Blankenberg (born 1971 or 1972[1]) is a Canadian-born South African museum designer, consultant, and administrator.[2] She is a former director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
Early life and education
Blankenberg's parents are South African and she was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba.[1] Her mother is White and her father is Coloured (and albino); they had relocated to Canada as their interracial marriage was illegal in South Africa at that time.[1][3] She earned a journalism degree from Carleton University and worked for 12 years in television and documentaries, including a year as a videographer on the CBC newsmagazine series Road Movies,[4] before moving to South Africa to study media and cultural studies, earning a masters degree from the University of Natal.[3][5] She moved back to Canada and began working as a museum designer and consultant.[3]
Museum career
Blankenberg has worked with the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Superblue Miami, the museum at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.[6][7] She is noted for her expertise in developing decolonization plans for cultural institutions as well as concept development and public engagement.[5]
Blankenberg has worked as a consultant with Dutch design firm Kossmann.dejong and with Toronto-based Lord Cultural Resources, where she was principal consultant.[8][9] In 2016, along with Lord co-founder Gail Lord, she co-edited Cities, Museums and Soft Power for the American Alliance of Museums.[9] Lord and Blankenberg argued that the concept of soft power should be expanded from the political sphere to include "cultural and urban life."[9]
From 2021 until 2023, she was the director of the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.[6] When she was appointed director on July 7, 2021, she announced her ambition to "redefine, heal and reconcile".[5] During her tenure, Blankenberg was a leading advocate for repatriation of artifacts in the museum's collection,[10] and in 2022 the museum returned 29 looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.[11] Blankenberg resigned from her position on March 31, 2023, citing "individual and institutional resistance".[6]
Following her resignation, Blankenberg returned to South Africa.[12]
Selected publications
- Blankenberg, Ngaire (2000). "That rare and random tribe: Albino identity in South Africa". Critical Arts. 14 (2): 6–48. doi:10.1080/02560040085310081. ISSN 0256-0046. S2CID 144647842.
- Lord, Gail Dexter; Blankenberg, Ngaire, eds. (8 July 2016). Cities, Museums and Soft Power. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-7677-2.[13]
- Hossaini, Ali; Blankenberg, Ngaire, eds. (27 March 2017). Manual of Digital Museum Planning. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-7897-4.