Welcome to Nkyinkyim Museum, an educational institution dedicated to visual archiving of African history and heritage. The Nkyinkyim Museum is an evolving museum that seamlessly combines African art, history, performance and intangible cultural heritage such as drumming, dancing, traditional rites, and food. The museum experience has been specifically designed to guide visitors towards healing through restorative and transformative justice.
Nestled in the farmlands of Nuhalenya-Ada in the Greater Accra region, the space began as the permanent home for the Nkyinkyim Installation and evolved to become Ghana’s largest outdoor museum. Nkyinkyim Installation and the Nkyinkyim Museum are the creation of Ghanaian multi-disciplinary artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, Founder and Creative Director of the Ancestor Project. Kwame began archiving oral history and traditions through his sculptures in 2009. The mission of Ancestor Project is to use art and education to foster healing for people of African descent from the legacies of colonialism and enslavement.
Nkyinkyim Museum is known for using griots to unravel the history, symbolism, traditional African religion, and philosophy embodied in the sculptures. Griots are respected and learned people who have been trained to understand and explain the multifaceted aspects of describing, curating, and preserving culture through the artifacts and stories associated with them, including the oral traditions of the people as they interact with each other and with artifacts. The griot’s role is to understand and interpret the journeys that lead us to here and all the stops along the way from the earliest stories until now. Since 2019, the Nkyinkyim Museum’s Griot Apprenticeship Program has seen six griots graduate and assume the duty of learning and explaining the background and lessons revealed at the museum. An additional six griots are currently in training.
Nkyinkyim Installation began in 2007 with a few dozen terracotta heads sculpted by Ghanaian multi-disciplinary artist and educator, Kwame Akoto-Bamfo. Envisioned to archive African history and heritage, the installation has a prominent theme dedicated to enslaved Africans. The now globally recognized sculptures were first “outdoored” in the 2017 exhibition Fauxreedom, as a commentary to Ghana’s 60th independence celebration.
The sculptures were installed and remained for three months at the tomb of Ghana’s first president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to Independence. After Fauxreedom, the installation was moved to Ussher Fort, a former slave fort that was later converted into a prison. Again in 2017, Nkyinkyim Installation was featured at Cape Coast Castle in an exhibition titled “Portraits of the Middle Passage,
In Situ” an experience that was curated by then Fulbright Scholar and collaborator Danny Dunson. The enslaved funerary sculptures stayed within the dungeons of Cape Coast Castle for a year before moving to their current location at Nkyinkyim Museum. A section on Nkyinkyim Installation completed a symbolic journey when they were finally installed at The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.
We’re Open: Monday – Sunday
9:00am to 5:00pm GMT, Ghana
Nkyinkyim Museum – Ancestor Project © 2025. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy / Terms of Use