He created a space for everyone to learn about Black culture and history — and imagine futures

CBC Quebec is highlighting people from the province's Black communities who are giving back, inspiring others and helping to shape our future. These are the 2023 Black Changemakers.

Creating a space that celebrates Black past, present and future has been the work of Guy Mushagalusa Chigoho for nearly a decade.

Chigoho is the managing director of the Afromusée, a museum in downtown Montreal that explores Afro-descendant society and culture.

"It's a gathering place where everyone can find themselves," says Chigoho, who is originally from Congo and has also lived in Belgium and Russia.

Chigoho came to Montreal in the early 1990s, just a few years after the 1989 closing of the Negro Community Centre, which had been the heart of Montreal's Black community in the city's Little Burgundy neighbourhood for decades.

He says the "trauma" of losing that space — finally demolished in 2014 — was palpable, and that loss is still felt today.

Twenty years after arriving in Montreal, Chigoho had an opportunity to help fill that vacuum.

He was working at Loto-Québec's contemporary art venue Espace Création at the time, an experience he calls "formative" in his understanding of what it takes to run a museum.

So in 2013, when Espace Création closed and Chigoho was reassigned to a less creative position, he took the leap to open his own gallery. He called it Espace Mushagalusa, filling the space with African art he had collected over decades.

While it began as a commercial art gallery, "the community took Espace Mushagalusa under its wing," Chigoho says. It became a sort of cultural centre for Black people of all origins, despite its modest size.

A few years after opening, Espace Mushagalusa faced financial difficulties and risked closing. The gallery's supporters rallied, paying down its debts and opening the door for its transformation into the non-profit Afromusée.

This winter, Afromusée underwent an expansion, adding two more rooms and a studio.

"We started with something very small, very modest. And we are still small and modest. But the community attached itself," Chigoho says. "And we try to grow, little by little."

Old newspapers and science fiction

Historian Dorothy Williams says as the makeup of Montreal's Black communities changes, with the arrival of a growing number of people immigrating from French-speaking countries, Chigoho is the ideal person to be at the helm of the museum.

Chigoho's longtime friend sees him as a visionary whose dreams for the museum are "much bigger than the storefront."

The pair have shared so many ideas about how to display Black history that "we almost dreamed together," Williams says.

The space still exhibits art, but it also has historical archives, such as documents relating to the slave trade in Quebec and copies of Free Lance — Quebec's first Black-run newspaper.

And as an example of its forward-looking focus, a recent exhibition examined Caribbean futurism, a concept akin to "science fiction," Chigoho says. Another upcoming exhibition will incorporate artificial intelligence.

The work of Frantz Voltaire as a "memory keeper" is being featured this month, and there are days where children are welcome to come and work with crayons and paper on shared tables.

Chigoho is intent on expanding the museum's programming and ensuring the institution is here to stay.

"I came at the right time, I think, with the right project," he says.

The Black Changemakers is a special series recognizing individuals who, regardless of background or industry, are driven to create a positive impact in their community. From tackling problems to showing small gestures of kindness on a daily basis, these changemakers are making a difference and inspiring others. Meet all the changemakers here.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.