The first site many people visit when they go to a new country is a museum. Museums give us an opportunity to learn and see the culture of a people from past to present, and at times, the future. But there is the story sociologists and historians archive in museums, and there is the story the people who live the story actually believe is important to them and their story. How about bringing the two together?
Nana Oforiatta Ayim, writer, cultural historian and filmmaker, has created a mobile museum in Ghana that is putting the power of curation into the hands of the community. Ayim is the founder of ANO, an Institution for Arts and Knowledge-based in Accra.
Founded in 2002, the organization’s aim is to uncover and create new cultural narratives of the African continent and connecting and supporting development through culture. Its mobile museum is presenting a new way to learn about a people – by having people give and then come and learn what is important to members of their community.
The company has set off on their first tour of the country, asking people in all ten regions and across all areas, what culture is to them, how they would like it expressed, in what forms, structures, institutions, what it brings and how it can help overcome some of the challenges we face as country.
“From August until December 2018, the Mobile Museum structure will tour the Central, Eastern, Volta, and Northern Regions, stopping two weeks in each region, with the first week dedicated to collecting materials and the second week to the exhibition. Each first week will be spent collecting and documenting materials, including objects, documents, photographs, oral histories, political histories, living spaces, typologies of space etc.
Each second week will be spent exhibiting those objects in the Mobile Museum, with the discourse around certain issues in each area; underpinned by engagement with artists from each area,” ANO eloquently describes of their work.
ANO has already toured the Western and Central region of Ghana, having provided these pictures exclusively to Face2FaceAfrica. See below and enjoy the sights.
Western Region