AFRICA and her art were in focus at the Bermuda National Gallery (BNG) this week ? the topic brought to life by visiting professors Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts and Allen F. Roberts.

The trip was a return one for the pair. In 1993 Dr. Nooter Roberts served as curator for the BNG's ground-breaking exhibit, . Three years later she returned with Dr. Roberts, the couple serving as co-curators for , an exhibit of African pieces which are today part of the BNG's permanent collection.

"Allen (spoke yesterday during the BNG lunchtime lecture presentation) about a project that we've been doing for the past ten years in Senegal," explained Dr. Nooter Roberts. "Tonight I'm going to be speaking on African art and African-American artists in a lecture called 'Call and Response', as part of the PartnerRe Art Lecture Series.

"That's the formal reason for our return but we've also come because the museum really wants to consider how to keep the presentation of their African collection alive and dynamic. They're now seeking ways to continue to draw the community to it. So we've been brainstorming together, we've had meetings with the Department of Education, we lectured this morning at the Bermuda College and we have been working with the staff ? we're just trying to think of innovative ways to not only keep the African collection on view permanently as an important testament to such an important element of Bermuda's heritage, but also to think of ways to keep its presentation really dynamic and changing. So that there's always a new way to approach the arts of Africa ? a new way to think about them and their relevance to life in Bermuda today."

Dr. Nooter Roberts is deputy director and chief curator of the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Prior to that, she was senior curator at New York's Museum for African Art, for ten years. Dr. Roberts is professor of World Arts and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and is director of UCLA's James S. Coleman African Studies Centre.

"We were delighted nine years ago when we could see the museum acquire its permanent collection and continue their involvement with African art," said Dr. Nooter Roberts of the exhibit which was achieved through monies donated by the local community. "It was especially wonderful to see the excitement and dedication of the community to the Gallery and how wonderful it was for them to feel a sense of ownership with regard to this collection. Many of the schools worked together to collectively purchase one of the works of art ? the Great Hawk mask from Burkina Faso ? and other people contributed to the purchase of specific objects."

Added Dr. Roberts: "We were so impressed by how the community came together that we've been talking about it to audiences ever since. We give a lot of talks around the United States and also around the world and it's very common for us to talk about it as a model ? of trying to reach out to a community and to bringing a community into the museum." drew 10,000 people into the then 18-month-old BNG. Included in that number were many of the island's schoolchildren island's ? a whopping 85 per cent. Today, Dr. Nooter Roberts said she remains as thrilled by the response as she was back in 1993.

"I was bowled over. It was just remarkable. It was even more important that it came right at the outset, in the early stages of the Gallery's life. I think it was just a tremendously important move on the part of the Gallery to consider having an African exhibition. It was an ambitious exhibition. It was what is considered to be a major, full-scale exhibition in the United States ? over 100 major objects of very high value. For us, it was just so exciting that it should come to the island, to a place that has such a strong Afro-Bermudian population.

"Still I didn't know that it would have as tremendous a response as it did. We could see that people were hungry for knowledge about Africa, that they wanted to know more. Al and I both feel that what we can contribute in our small way to the world is whatever knowledge we can to get people excited about Africa and also to see its richness ? the richness of its art and of its culture and its history."

An additional aim is to correct certain beliefs, she added.

"There's so many misconceptions and misrepresentations and it's just a great tribute to the BNG that from such an early moment in its history it could set out to present Africa in such a sophisticated and celebratory manner."

The Roberts themselves also work with that goal in mind, most recently as co-authors and co-curators of an award-winning book and exhibition, The exhibition was chosen byas one of the ten best of 2003 and is now on a national tour through early 2007. It was on this project Dr. Roberts delivered his lecture at the BNG yesterday.

"We've worked now for ten years in Senegal," he explained. "Although our research is ongoing, it came to fruition in our major book and travelling exhibition in 2003. It's all about mystical Islam. When we started the research we of course had no idea what other events would happen in the meantime ? in particular, 9/11.

"And so what has happened is, the stories we've been telling which are truly the voices of the artists we've been working with, are especially poignant because they present another face of Islam. It's specifically a pacifist movement. It specifically is a movement that's based on the philosophy of hard work and self-effacement, the needs of others. People in Senegal often compare the spiritual leader of the movement, a man named Sheikh Amadou Bamba who lived from 1853 to 1927, to Martin Luther King and Ghandi because of his passive resistance. He found dignity in circumstances that were difficult.

"Those are messages that have just been a wonderful use in our own circumstances in the United States where there is a kind of narrow focus on a very fringe element of Islam that is fanatic. Many, many Americans misunderstand what Islam is about. Before anything else, it's about peace and social harmony. People only think that Islam is defined by its radicals.

"They would be loathe to talk about the radicals in Christianity that have done as awful things ? you could say that Adolf Hitler probably considered himself a Christian. What we've been able to do, again with direct help from our Senegalese friends in Senegal and those who live in the United States, is to confront the issues. We've been able to talk about other pieces of the story and there's been a great reception to that."

Added Dr. Nooter Roberts: "It's also important to note that (our project) is about contemporary art in urban Senegal.

"It's rather a new thing in African art exhibitions to present urban life. We tend to look more often at traditional life and art from more rural areas.

"But more and more, Africa is just becoming so cosmopolitan and the contemporary arts are so vital. It's a burgeoning new field. So it's been a great exhibition for doing that because it really gets across the modernity of Africa."

Dr. Nooter Roberts is speaking at the BNG tonight. There is a reception at 5.30 p.m., followed by a 6 p.m. lecture. General admission is $10, or $5 for BNG members.

Tickets are available at the BNG or online at www.boxoffice.bm.