Audio Stories
Interviews with Ghanaians about their lives, historical memories, and cultural topics.
Recorded November 2020
08:24 minutes
Mrs. Joyce Owusu is a 92-year-old Ghanaian elder. She was born in the Gold Coast under British colonial rule. In her lifetime she has experienced the birth of our nation Ghana, the start and end of the Second World War, and the end of Empire Day in Ghana. Mrs. Owusu was trained as a nurse and worked in Ghana for many years both as a service provider and as a patient. The Nana Project sat down with Mrs. Owusu and her daughter, Ghanaian-British architect Elsie Owusu. We discussed three moments in her life: her upbringing in southern Ghana, between the Central and Eastern Regions; her experience of the war in the 1940s; and her memories of Queen Elizabeth’s 1961 visit, including the song Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and The Queen danced to during the State Dinner.
Recorded July 19, 2020
37:36 minutes
Kuukuwa is a trained architect from Ghana currently pursuing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London. She is also the Principal Investigator on building Early Accra - a project that aims to digitise endangered architectural documents in Accra. She also curates an architecture collective – adansisem – which documents and showcases stories of Ghanaian architecture. In this interview we talked about her interest in pre- and post-colonial Ghana architecture, the role of women in Ghanaian architecture, and Kuukuwa's work in preserving the documents at the Accra Metropolitan Assembly.
Recorded January 2, 2020
51:29 minutes
We spoke with Benjamina Dadzie about Akan gold weights, missionary presence in West Africa, migration of the Akan people, importance of oral histories, and much more! Benjamina is a native of Sekondi, Ghana and naturalised Italian. She is a writer and researcher, with an interest in West African cultures, especially Akan and Yoruba culture, and the history and making of the African diaspora culture. In her work she explores agency, representation and self-determination, and the role of objects as aids and embodiment of these ideas.
Note: When Benjamina says 1730s, she means 1830s.
Recorded December 29, 2016
29:13 minutes
Collinwise Osei-Aboagye talks to his daughter, Amma Aboagye, about his childhood in Ghana, immigrating to the United States, his initial interactions with African Americans as a Ghanaian, and his connection with Ghanaian culture after living in the United States for 36 years.
Recorded December 29, 2016
38:42 minutes
Kirstie Kwarteng (28) interviews Nana Aba Bentsi-Enchill (64) about her decision to immigrate from Ghana to the United States. Nana Aba talks about how her father's death impacted her. She also reflects on her own colorblindness and the experience of raising children in the United States.
Recorded December 28, 2016
32:01 minutes
A conversation between father and daughter.
Header image by Kevin Wenning (Unsplash)