The NIU anthropology museum reopened with an exhibit of modern paintings and traditional artifacts from Africa after a two-year renovation.

“African Dialogues” compares modern paintings from the Democratic Republic of Congo with traditional Congolese masks, weavings, statues, carvings and tools.

The exhibit includes paintings of African families, religious images of Jesus and Mary, masks from secret societies and a large alligator totem.

Rebekah Kohli, an alumna of NIU’s art history graduate program, was the guest curator for the exhibit.

“I organized the exhibit around the theme of dialogues because I believe there are a number of dialogues that take place throughout the exhibit on a number of different levels,” Kohli said.

Ann Wright-Parsons, director of the anthropology museum, said one of the main dialogues within the exhibit is between styles used by contemporary painters and traditional forms in African culture.

Wright-Parsons said the artwork exemplifies a time of unsettled feelings toward the political situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kohli said the inspiration for some of the paintings came from a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1964.

“African Dialogues” will be at the museum through the end of April. The museum, located in the north wing of the Stevens Building, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday or by special appointment. The re-opened anthropology museum also includes exhibits on ancient cave art, Neanderthals and the Alaskan gold rush.