The Nkyinkyim Story
Welcome to Nkyinkyim Museum, a space dedicated to the visual archiving of African history and heritage. Nestled in the farmlands of Nuhalenya-Ada in the Greater Accra region, the Nkyinkyim Museum is the creation of Ghanaian multi-disciplinary artist and educator Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, Founder and Creative Director of Ancestor Project/Nkyinkyim Museum.
Kwame Akoto-Bamfo began archiving oral history and heritage in 2006, marking the early beginnings of the Ancestor Project and the Nkyinkyim Museum. He sculpted his first collection of figurative heads in 2009. In 2013, the sculptures were placed in the Sacred Area at Nkyinkyim Museum. The Ancestor Project was registered as a non-profit organisation in 2019 and has since embarked on extensive education, empowerment, and cultural preservation programmes and activities. The most notable of these is the Nkyinkyim Museum, whose centre-piece is the globally acclaimed Nkyinkyim Installation.
Nkyinkyim Museum is known for using griots to unravel the history, symbolism, spirituality, and philosophy embodied in the sculptures. Griots are respected and learned people who have been trained to understand the multifaceted aspects of describing, explaining, curating, and preserving culture. Nkyinkim Museum’s Griot Learning Program has been in place since 2019 and has graduated six griots who have assumed the duty of facilitating tours and revealing lessons in the form of African symbols and stories at the museum. As a living, evolving museum, tangible and intangible culture is created, expressed, and displayed daily. As guests interact with each other and with the museum artifacts and experience, we can all better understand the journey that led African people from our earliest stories to now and the twists and turns along the way.
The Ancestor Project/Nkyinkyim Museum is a non-profit organisation that uses art and education to foster healing for people of African descent from the legacies of colonialism and enslavement. Through our year-round programming, we seek to empower and educate African youth and people of all ages by encouraging dialogue between creatives and participants. Since its inception as a cultural movement in 2006, the organisation aims to promote and preserve tangible and intangible African cultural heritage.
Installation Sculptures Journey
The Nkyinkyim Installation is an evolving collection of figurative sculptures created by Ghanaian multi-disciplinary artist and educator, Kwame Akoto-Bamfo. Envisioned to archive African history and heritage, the globally recognized installation is dedicated to honoring the enslaved African ancestors.
The sculptures were displayed publicly in the 2017 exhibition Fauxreedom, a commentary to Ghana’s 60th independence celebration. The sculptures were installed at the tomb of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, who led Ghana to Independence. The sculptures stayed at the tomb of Kwame Nkrumah for three months before they were moved to Ussher Fort, a former slave castle that was later converted into a prison.
Again in 2017, Cape Coast Castle hosted the Nkyinkyim Installation in an exhibition entitled “Portraits of the Middle Passage, In Situ” an experience that was curated by Fulbright Scholar and collaborator Danny Dunson. The sculptures remained within the dungeons of Cape Coast Castle for a year until they were installed at their current location within the Sacred Area at Nkyinkyim Museum in Nuhalenya-Ada, Ghana. A section of the figurative heads completed a symbolic journey when they were finally installed at the Equal Justice Initiative National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.
Address
Nkyinkyim Museum Nuhalenya-Ada, Greater Accra, Ghana
Hours
We're Open: Monday - Sunday. 9 AM to 5 PM
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