The Africa Institute Sharjah focuses on Ghana and its global connections
SHARJAH: Ghana, the multinational State, home to a variety of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups in West Africa, is the flavour of the season, falling in the first quarter of this year. The country was the focus of a conference at The Africa Institute (TAI) in March and Sir David Adjaye, Ghanaian-british architect, who is developing the Institute’s brand new campus in Sharjah, has figured in a detailed interview at Prestigeonline.com. The online publication is a lifestyle media that focuses on eminent personalities, and is available in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.
TAI is especially close to his heart, Adjaye says in the interview, and will “act as a springboard that emerges lesser-known diasporas than that of the Atlantic slave trade and forges new connections between Africa, the African diaspora and the Arab world.”
The conference at the Institute was the first iteration of a two-part interdisciplinary scholarly conference titled Global Ghana: Sites of Departure/sites of Return.
It examined the ways in which Ghana has emerged over the last century as a focal point of diasporic engagement beginning with early 20th-century ‘Back to Africa’ movements, followed by Pan-africanism, anti-colonial liberation movements, and more recently, with heritage tourism.
The season pushed beyond Ghana’s Atlantic world connections to open a wider field of enquiry about Ghana’s relations with the Arab world, and examinations of the past, present and future of Afro-arab relations.
The first panel explored the complex history and contemporary aspirations that have made Ghana one of the world’s most important sites of departure and sites of return. Through strategic cultivation of its cultural heritage tourism sector, the country has emerged as the continent’s premier destination for diasporic Africans wishing to “return” home. Panelists were Jessica Millward, University of California at Irvine, USA; Kwesi Essel-blankson, Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, Ghana; Ebony Coletu, Pennsylvania State University, USA and Fatimah Dadzie, Filmmaker. Carina Ray, Brandeis University, USA, was the moderator.
The keynote lecture on El Anatsui’s Metamorphic and Shape-shiting Objects was delivered by Chika Okeke-agulu of Princeton University, USA.
In celebration of the publication of Chika Okeke-agulu’s and Okwui Enwezor’s El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture, the presentation situated El Anatsui’s iconic artistic practice within the broader context of the mid-twentieth-century cultural ferment of post-independence Ghana, as well as within the intellectual environment of the 1970s Nsukka School in Nigeria.
In highlighting the transnational coordinates of El Anatsui’s career, Okeke-agulu foregrounded the ways in which Ghana has and continues to be a site of departure and site of return for one of the world’s greatest modernist artists.
The second panel examined Pan-africanism across the divides – political, geographic, and gendered – from Ghana’s independence to the present.
Ghana’s independence in 1957 was a transformative moment for Pan-africanism. The global movement that sought to unite the past, present and futures of African and Africa-descended peoples, found a welcoming home in the new nation and a powerful proponent in its first prime minister and president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
Panelists were Hakim Adi, University of Chichester, UK; Robert Vinson, University of Virginia, USA; Takyiwaa Manuh, University of Ghana, Ghana; Mjiba Frehiwot, University of Ghana, Ghana. Jean Allman, Professor, African and African American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis, USA, was moderator.
Economists and historians have calculated the cost of the exploitation, abuse, and abduction of people from the former Gold Coast and the pillage of its rich and valuable resources into trillions of US dollars - yet Ghana has not been at the forefront of the Reparations and Restitutions movement.
Panelists were Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project, Ghana; De-valera Botchway, University of Cape Coast, Ghana; Nana Kobina Nketsia V, Omanhene of Essikado, Ghana and Akosua Adomako Ampofo, University of Ghana, Ghana, was the moderator. Panel four was a film discussion on John Akomfrah’s Mimesis: African Soldier. The conversation brought together historian
Carina Ray and visual studies scholar, Joseph Oduro Frimpong, to discuss Akomfrah’s powerful new film Mimesis: African Soldier.
An act of remembrance, the film commemorates the millions of African soldiers who fought in World War I. Panelists were Joseph Oduro Frimpong, Ashesi University, Ghana and Carina Ray. Panel five was discussion-based and brought together a group of creatives to explore how their specific experiences negotiating diverse locales have influenced and inspired their work. The frenetic movement of people, goods, and ideas in and outside of Ghana by land, sea, and air, has long been central to the country’s artistic and cultural production.
Transnational mobility across diverse cities in contemporary times, has produced networks linking Accra to Lagos, London, the Bronx, and beyond, and led to an explosion of creative output.
Panelists were Lesley Lokko, African Futures Institute, Ghana; M.anifest, Hip Hop Artist/ Musician; Kwesi Botchway, Impressionist and Portrait Artist and Elisabeth Efua Sutherland, Performance Artist. Joseph Oduro-frimpong, Ashesi University, Ghana, was the moderator. Panel six was A Conversation with Sir David Adjaye and Lesley Lokko. Ghana looms large in conversations about “return”, especially among African descended people in the Americas. The conversation brought together two of Ghana’s most prominent architects, David Adjaye and Lesley Lokko, to discuss their return to Ghana and what has inspired them to build new futures for themselves and for others. Panelists were Sir David Adjaye, Adjaye Associates, Ghana and Lesley Lokko, Africa Futures Institute, Ghana. Salah M Hassan, Director, The Africa Institute, moderated.