“Magic Mali”, Google Arts & Culture's proposal on Mali's culture

Madrid, 15 Mar The cultural platform Google Arts & Culture travels to Mali to show its four wonders (manuscripts, music, monuments and modern art) through a portal that explores the legacy of this country so “sadly punished by different crises”. “Mali Magic”, this is the name of this new Google Arts & Culture project in which you can see more than 40,000 digitized pages of manuscripts on science, history or geography; you will be able to take interactive views of emblematic Malian monuments, as well as listen to the album “Maliba”, created exclusively for this project by Fatoumata Diawara, winner of two Grammys in 2019. Likewise, as reported by the platform, archival images, recordings, vinyl and stories about the Festival au Désert, Festival en Exile and Caravana for Peace are also available on this portal. It is a project, as they explain, that has meant more years of work for Google Arts & Culture, six in total, and to carry it out it has partnered with community leaders, local and international organizations, including SAVAMA, Tombuktu Renaissance, Instruments 4 Africa and UNESCO, to capture, preserve and digitally share the Mali's heritage with the world. Specifically, among this material, the Internet user will be able to travel by mouse through “The Magic of Mali and the Manuscripts of Timbuktu 2, a collection that invites us to explore forever the cultural legacy of this country. Because, they explain, long before the European Renaissance, the Malian city of Timbuktu gave birth to a “wealth of knowledge in the fields of human rights, morals, politics, astronomy and literature embodied in thousands of priceless manuscripts”. When this ancient knowledge, cared for by families rather than being stored in museums, was threatened by extremist groups in 2012, local communities raced against time to preserve these treasures, considered one of Africa's great written legacies. Thus, this project highlights the “great legacy of Mali and the search of people to preserve it and ventures to explore the vibrant culture of Mali by showing stories about manuscripts, monuments, music and modern arts”. For example, according to the portal, Timbuktu's literary history represents a fundamental pillar of the country's cultural legacy. “Mali,” they say, “has been able to preserve this heritage for centuries. The scholarly knowledge of the Islamic world, particularly between the 14th and 16th centuries, is gathered in beautifully written texts on decorated folios, now known as the Timbuktu manuscripts”. Among other documents, “Mali Magic” also proposes traveling hand in hand with “Street View” through sites such as the Sidi Yahiya Mosque, the Djinguereber Mosque, the Sankore Mosque, the Tomb of Askia, the Grand Mosque of Djenne, the Bandiagara Escarpment, Hamdallaye, the Grand Mosque of Niono and the Grand Mosque of Mopti (Grand Mosque of Bougoufle)). CHIEF PMV/CC