Nwobu's 1911 Anthropometric Portraits Reexamined in Museum Affordances Project

The Museum Affordances website showcases a diptych of Nwobu, an Igbo individual from Amansea, Nigeria, captured in 1911 by British anthropologist Northcote W. Thomas. This initiative revisits artifacts and documentation from Thomas's fieldwork during the colonial period in Southern Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Commissioned by the British Colonial Office, Thomas undertook three expeditions, resulting in 7,000 glass negatives and extensive reports. The ichi marks on Nwobu, applied during childhood or adulthood, were created by a specialist using a knife and herbs. Thomas's collection is preserved in several institutions, including the British Library and the University of Cambridge. Emmanuel Iduma, a writer, contemplates the historical separation between observer and subject in his works, such as 'A Stranger's Pose' (2018).