Speakers
Backwards Never: A Political History Retrospective
Emmanuella Amoh is a researcher with interest in black nationalist movements and the socio-political impact of the transatlantic relationship between Africans and Diaspora Africans. She has a BA in History and English from the University of Ghana and an MS in History from Illinois State University. She is currently pursuing a PhD degree examining the connections between the development of Pan-Africanism and the Civil Rights Movement.
Anakwa Dwamena, a journalist and researcher, is a contributing editor for Africa is A Country. He previously worked at The New Yorker, The Nation and The New Republic magazines. He writes about US-Africa politics and the lives of African immigrants in America. He is a graduate of Georgetown University in DC, where he studied Government and African Studies.
Nana Ama Agyemang Asante currently works as a freelancer. She was formerly the co-host of one of the most listened to morning shows in Ghana, the Citi Breakfast Show (CBS). The CBS is a public interest radio where hosts speak truth to power and citizens. For seven years, Nana Ama provided the much needed feminine perspective on national issues and debates. She helped direct national attention to social issues and minority rights. Nana Ama was also the deputy online editor of Citi FM’s news website, citifmonline.com supervising the production of factual, timely, and accurate stories. From June 2011 to September 2014, Nana Ama served as the Country Coordinator of Journalists for Human Rights (Jhr) a Canadian NGO that promotes human rights and governance stories across the African continent. She coordinated the NGO’s and trainers’ relationships with local journalists and media houses. Nana Ama was recently a fellow at the Reuters Institute of Journalism at the University of Oxford and the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC.
Dr. Benjamin Talton is an Associate Professor of African History. His research, writing, and teaching focus on politics and culture in modern Africa and the African Diaspora. Dr. Talton has formerly been a Visiting Senior Lecturer and Scholar-in-Residence at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Professor Talton serves on the executive board of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD) and is a past president of the Ghana Studies Association.
Legacy in Print: Photographing A Nation
Benjamina Efua Dadzie is a writer and researcher, with an interest in West African cultures, especially Akan and Yoruba. She has a BA (Hons) in Archaeology from the University of Manchester, and an MA in the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas from the University of East Anglia. Her current research deals with the impact of missionary presence in 19th century Abeokuta (southwestern Nigeria), focusing on changes in identity and material culture. She is a Collections Assistant in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; the Digital Editor of the award-winning open-access publication 100 Histories of 100 Worlds in 1 Object; and a Researcher at The Nana Project, where she leads content development with a focus on pre- and colonial Ghana.
Adjoa Armah is an artist, writer and curator, with a background in material anthropology and design. Her work is concerned with the entanglement between narrative, archival practice, art, pedagogy, Black ontology, ethnology, and the political imagination. She is founder of Saman Archive, an archive of photographic negatives collected across Ghana. Through Saman Archive Adjoa explores what it might mean to dwell in an archive otherwise, as praxis and an extension of epistemological horizons. Adjoa is associate lecturer in BA Fine Art Critical Studies at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. She is also visiting lecturer in graduate studies in various programmes across art and design.
Kwabena Agyare Yeboah is a writer based in Accra, Ghana. He writes reviews, criticism and journalism and literary genres. In 2015, his poem ‘Moonlight’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the Mexico-based Ofi Press. He was the first runner up in the GHSCIENTIFIC Science Writing Competition in 2017. At the inaugural Kofi Awoonor Prize for Literature (Poetry), his manuscript THIS AND OTHER RIVERS earned a mention. He has written for African Arguments, Contemporary &, The Mail & Guardian, Nubuke Foundation’s The New Dawn Blog, Popula, The Storymoja Blog and others. He contributed an essay to Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama’s monograph EXCHANGE-EXCHANGER (1957 - 2017). He has contributed poems and short stories to anthologies including OBIBINI TE ASE and ACCORDING TO SOURCES. In 2019, he independently realised the EVOLUTION OF SCIENCE exhibition for GHscientific. Since 2020, he has been working as an institutional curator with Nubuke Foundation in Accra. Photo credit: 2cp Photography
Weaving the Fabric of a Nation: Ghana’s Tapestry
Amma Aboagye is the Founding Curator of the Afropole and will boil her life's work down to one thing: value addition. Amma is a fervent believer in the power of people to drive change and has been using various forms of media, including blogs and radio programming, to empower youth and promote meaningful conversations about the role Afrodiasporans play in their global advancement. In 2017, Amma launched The Afropole, a brokerage that seeks to connect African and Afrodiasporan businesses in the food, beauty and creative spaces. In 2019, she hosted the first ever Wax Print Festival as a celebration of African ingenuity and innovation. Later that year, she launched her podcast, Inside Out by Amma G. a podcast all about intrapreneurship and corporate venturing: how do you build within a system. Amma is a self described “cultural innovator” and believes that Africans and Afrodiasporans have the power to carve a niche in those spaces that will propel Black people toward economic independence. When Amma is not working, she can be found dancing on instagram.
Osei-Bonsu Safo-Kantanka is a historian and researcher of language, culture, and tradition. He is currently a researcher at Manhyia Palace in Kumasi, the home of the Asantehene. He specializes in knowledge of Handicrafts, Textiles, Symbols, art and artifacts. He is the co-author of Kente Cloth: History and Culture and is the creator of the Bonwire Kente Festival.
Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is the author of Powder Necklace, which Publishers Weekly called "a winning debut." Named to the “Africa39” list of writers “with the potential and talent to define trends in the development of literature from Sub-Saharan Africa and the diaspora,” her short fiction was included in the anthology Africa39. Her work also appears in Everyday People: The Color of Life, New Daughters of Africa, and Accra Noir among others. Forthcoming from Brew-Hammond are a children's picture book, a novel, and an anthology. Brew-Hammond was a 2019 Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellow, a 2018 Aké Arts and Book Festival Guest Author, a 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar, a 2016 Hedgebrook Writer-in-Residence, and a 2015 Rhode Island Writers Colony Writer-in-Residence. Every month, Brew-Hammond co-leads a writing fellowship whose mission is to write light into the darkness.
Elvis Ativoe is a spokesperson of the Paramount Chief of the Agotime Traditional Area, Nene Nuer Keteku III and former Vice Chairman of the Agotime Kente Festival Planning Committee. He is an advocate for the preservation and promotion of Ghana’s most identifiable symbol, Kente. Elvis has an in-depth knowledge of the evolution of the Ewe Kente, also known as Agbamevor. He has special interest in projecting the customary and traditional usage of the Ewe Kente. Elvis is a Chartered Accountant by Profession and Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, UK and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana. He is a product of the University of Ghana Business School and holds an Executive Masters in Business Administration from GIMPA and has over 16years working experience across industries. He is currently the Finance Director of Subah Holdings, the ICT Group of the JOSPONG Group of Companies. Elvis is passionate about Youth and Community Development.
Gertrude Kunde-Kwallinjam is an entrepreneur and the founder of Smockyworld Limited. Smockyworld is a one-stop fashion centre with access to a variety of quality, original high-end hand-woven and hand-dyed smock fabrics from the north of Ghana (Gonja-land, home of the “fugu”/northern cloth), as well as modern-styled, ready-to-wear apparel and accessories made from these rich fabrics. Smockyworld is dedicated to providing an ensemble of fashion items to clients from all over the world that will enable them to connect to rich Ghanaian (northern) history, make meaningful use of their own unique and modern tastes for fashion, and feel high self-confidence when they appear in any environment. Gertrude wears many hats; besides running her own business, she is also renowned in the banking sector. She is the Northern Regional Sales & Services Manager for Fidelity Bank Ghana and takes charge of all the bank’s branches and agents in the Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions. She holds a Commonwealth Executive MBA certificate from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Ghana.
The Beat of Ghana: The Evolution of Ghana’s Music
British-Ghanaian based Artist & Curator, Paulina Nkansah has been exploring her love for culture, music and stories in her pieces for the past 4 years. In 2020, she decided to take her long-standing love and passion for Highlife/African Popular music and share it with the world through her digital archive museum called ‘An Ode to Highlife’, which is dedicated to retelling and preserving the diverse history of Highlife/African Popular Music and its legacy.
The Legendary Gyedu Blay Ambolley from Ghana, West Africa has 30 albums to his credit. His 30th album was released in May 2017 by Agogo Records in Germany and having lots of wonderful reviews across board. Ambolley, affectionately known as the "Simigwa Do Man", was born in the port city of Sekondi-Takoradi, in the Western Region of Ghana, West Afrika. This versatile, irrepressible singer, songwriter, producer and "musical-life-force" exploded on the music scene in 1973 with a jazzy highlife sounds called 'SIMIGWA-DO'. Ambolley's name has become synonymous with Simigwa music and dance since his first hit single was released in 1973 and that was the first ever recorded rap music commercially in the world before the Sugar Hill Gang in America. Ambolley has received numerous prestigious accolades/awards. Installed by Nana Kobina Nketsia of Essikado, Sekondi as Nana Gyedu Blay Ambolley, King of Simigwa music in Sekondi in the Western Region of Ghana. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award - Ghana Music Awards by Vodafone 2013. In 2006, Gubernatorial Recognition Award from the Governor of California as well as an award from the Mayor of California, Board of Supervisors and the City Council of the State of California. He also received a "Congressional Recognition Award' from the United States Congress.
Legendary musician and guitarist, Agya Koo Nimo is a leader of the Palmwine music genre (Sadwaase ndwon) with a career spanning seven decades. With his acoustic music he tells stories rooted in the values and principles of his culture. Through his distinctive sound, Koo Nimo weaves the culture of his native Asante with the motifs of mainstream music, creating both a celebration of Ghanaian folklore songs and telling the history of a nation. Koo Nimo has been the recipient of many prestigious appointments and honours, including Visiting Senior Lecturer, Department of Music, at Cape Coast University; Member of the Education Commission of Ghana, Asanteman Award from the Asantehene Otumfuo Opoku Ware II; Resident Scholar and Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology; and the Du Bois-Padmore-Amu Award for Lifetime Achievement from the African American Heritage Award. In 2009 he established the Koo Nimo Cultural Resource Centre.