Ghanaians talk, chale we’ve been talking for centuries…
Preface:
2 weeks ago I attended an open studio at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. The last resident artist presenting that evening was Joel Ong, a fellow Masters colleague at SymbtioitcA. Joel’s presentation was unconventional in a number of ways (even as a performance art piece): firstly it wasnt in a space defined by four white walls, nope it was a staircase. a black metal circular structure leading to the fire escape with a grid cage as its walls. Secondly, it was the staircase that was ‘performing’ in the sense that it was the medium that communicated between the artist and the audience. As Joel walks, jumps and bangs on the staircase, the resultant physical vibrations are absorbed by the structure and can be experienced acoustically as amplified sound vibrations. Lastly the audience had to equip themselves with stethoscopes–ones of varying lengths, number of chest pieces–that instructed them to “listen” to parts of the staircase in different ways. So while one person using the stethoscopes that had two ‘chest pieces’ in two different locations would hear a ‘mix’ of the sound vibrations, another would have a stethoscopes whose tube length that was so short that would force him/her to ‘almost’ lean on the wall forcing a different acoustic and physical experience with the structure. (see below)
Anyway while listening to the different ‘voices’ of the staircase as I changed where my chest-piece rested, it started to remind me of Brazil House in Jamestown (Accra, Ghana) and the metaphor of ‘living walls’–walls that tell history in their own ways either architecturally, visually, acoustically, etc.
“TALKING WALLS” —
Oral History Devices in Ghanaian Museums
Brazil House, the first architectural structure built by Afro-Brazilian slaves in Ghana, boasts the history of Ghana’s urban change in a way that is most accurately expressed by its walls. Initially constructed with landcrete stone hacked off the cliffs of Jamestown’s Atlantic coastline, the bricks are obscured with a series of paint, plaster, cement, and more coats of paint that reflect its changing use as a home, commercial warehouse, rental property, and most recently a museum. If you can imagine these walls as a section through a tree bark, then perhaps the metaphor of a historical depository works here and we can start to imagine how perhaps this can utilized as an inspiration for house’s function as a museum in the Ghanaian settting.
So why dont Ghanaians like going to museums/galleries in Ghana? And by museums I mean places like the National Museum, the few galleries that showcase permanent or rotating works of traditional and contemporary art and history –like the gallery at the National Archives, the Goethe Institute in Labone, Ablade Glover’s gallery in Labadi or Nubuke Foundation in East Legon. Well I’d say it’s not because what is being shown doesn’t interest them. Off the top of my head I can think of many exhibitions that have so much potential to attract Ghanaians from all types of backgrounds, Goethe Institute’s FIFA world cup exhibition in 2006, Nubuke’s exhibition on the history of Ghanaian Football or another on the history of kente cloth. The fascinating art pieces of contemporary Ghanaian art at Ablade Glover’s gallery or Goethe Institute’s showcasing of works between anglophone and francophone West African artists are inspirational and encouraging for many young Ghanaian art students whose works transform and grow when they are exposed to such explorations.
So what are the reasons that museums aren’t flourishing here? First of all these places are few and these museums and their few ongoing exhibition aren’t able to penetrate into mainstream media, only known to those who belong to certain networks in society. When I look at Brazil House located at such an important location in Old Accra, it is a space that has such potential to draw interest from locals and tourists but is failing on both accounts.
Its rooms showcase the history of important people in Ghana and practices in the Jamestown area such as boxing, AfroBrazilian drumming and dancing, fishing, trading and most especially a different voice on the Atlantic slave trade.
While I dont have the perspective of an insider in the museum and heritage industry in Ghana, I believe that as an outsider part of the answer lies simply in the ways that museums communicate to the Ghanaian.
Taking the plaques used in Brazil House, we have old, precious images grafted onto these global modes of commemoration using fonts, colors and formats that in my opinion do little to ‘trigger’ memories or the imagination. Of course, I agree they look concise and professional. But can they do more than record history in this clean fashion? Can they become platforms for generating memories and interactions between its audience…can they communicate to the ordinary Ghanaian in a way that appeals to him, that is familiar and makes him feel comfortable in such a space? Can an ordinary Jamestown inhabitant walk in there and feel unpretentious in his daily clothes to allow him to relax and absorb knowledge and stories about this place that he lives in? Can they show the tourist or visitor glimpses of what this old building was like and the personalities of the people that used to live there, of its prosperity, demise and survival? For me, they should, such architecture should work to do such things–they should give means of exploring the past and present circumstances in ways that we are a little bit familiar with.
HOW?
Joel’s piece is important here because in an initial sense, it inspires the an acoustic technology that can supplement Brazil House’s plaques. The crux of my research on the Brazil House was based on oral histories derived from interviews with elders of the AfroBrazilian community in Ghana–many important individuals whose accounts on Ghanaian history and events are a precious resource. Their stories are supplemented and complimented by each other and by various members of the community. So firstly these accounts can serve as oral history archives, recorded and played through these sound walls to the visitor.
Secondly these sound walls can be used as a platform for examining contrasting stories. The results of which can be used a catalysts for other forms of academic research, exhibitions or non-academic pursuits. Think of disappearing trade, agricultural and commercial practices that many of the Tabon were famous for.
Thirdly and perhaps more excitingly, the sound walls can also serve as a means of recording feedback from the house’s visitors. Perhaps this is the most important aspect of the Ghanaian oral tradition that is ignored. Learning or acquiring knowledge in the oral tradition is as much about listening and it is interpreting and saying things in your own words. And being able to speak in your own words is what this whole architectural endeavor is all about.
Anyway in the near future, I will update on the development of this sound wall project at the Brazil House in collaboration with Joel Ong and the Brazilian Embassy in Ghana. For now here are some pictures setting up a simpler version of Joel’s sound setup at his exhibition the Edith Cowan University library this week.
Setup
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Testing sounds (from computer) and hearing devices:
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Composing sounds generated (by choosing input eg. voices from a TED video and or one Joel’s compositions and adjusting the frequencies, amplitude at which they play):
The cycle of ‘importing-localizing-exporting’
Today marks one week being back @ Tufts for the final semster. I’m thinking about the stages of this thesis and somehow it relates to the weather conditions I’ve been in since I’ve started. When I started in Accra in Summer 2009 everything was moving very fast…information was flowing in, flowing out, circulating, etc…nothing had quite settled in place yet until Fall Semester 2009 in Boston where I had time to ‘bottle-in’ all these info molecules a container/building (=Brazil House).
Then I get back to Ghana in December 2009 to collect more exciting molecules to fill this bottle, but the cap comes off! all my molecules escape again! This time they arent flying randomly, I understand where they are going…but don’t expect the other moleculees of info that they start to roll with. Now all my escaped molecules are rich with friends…all dancing about excitedly in their fresh and newfound relationships.
This time (Spring 2010) coming back to Boston, I dont put this community of molecules in any bottle..I’ve deposited them in audiotapes, photographs, sketches, maps, emails, haphazard paragraphs, and most importantly in my memory. They are lying heavily in these depositories, growing cold in beantown weather. For the next month, in this environment I’ll have to sort them out, bring them together in a way that makes sense…where better to take a step back and do some thinking than here in the dead of Boston weather ? afterall, we are trapped indoors most of the time with our books, lamps and tea…
While writing the first Chapter of my thesis felt like recounting the history of Ghana, Chapter 2 of my thesis feels like the discovery of something new. I’m reading Peter Mark’s book ( ‘Portuguese’ Style and Luso-African Identity) in an attempt to understand how the terreo and sobrado houses of Bahian slaves have localized imported Portuguese architecture.
Slowly Im realizing that in terms of architectural features, what was known as ‘Portuguese style’ existed in 18th century not only in West Africa but as far way as territories in the Indian Ocean. That it wasn’t monolithic, it varies considerably across geography and time period. That in the act of projecting a ‘Portuguese identity’ they had localized and recreated that identity. And in the act of exportation, reinforced this resultant identity. Subtly also, through an export culture, that identity could be selectively manipulated over time.
I am interested in several routes:
1. IMPORTATION the Greek revival in Portugal that was carried to Brazil in the late 18th-early 19th century following the scampering of the Portuguese Braganza royal family and court.
2. LOCALIZATION How the locazalizaiton of this architecture was manifested in Brazil specifically in urban housing of Afro-Brazilian slaves in Bahia
3. EXPORTATION How Afro-Brazilian slaves who were deported or bought their freedom began to build in West African when they returned.
4. LOCALIZATION How these houses were localized in their West African Setting.
5. EXPORTATION How these houses changed or influenced local architecture.
Over time, what is this new architecture that emerges…does it now assume a unique identity to its location? How and why?
Brazil House
Back in Accra for two months to finish up my thesis research on the Brazil House in Jamestown.
Source: Brazil House Rehabilitation Project UNESCO
The Brazil House is located on a small cliff off Ghana’s coastline, the first house from the East on Brazil Lane. In precolonial era, the house occupied a central position between British and Dutch Accra, a ten minute walk to the James Fort and an even shorter distance in the opposite direction towards Ussherfort. There are five main arteries that run from High Street to intersect with Brazil Lane. Even more importantly, the backyards of houses of the house overlooks the most important economic entryway into Ghana until the twentieth century, the Fishing Harbor. Of all these houses, Brazil House is the closest to the harbor, directly below it today still lies a colorful stretch of fishing boats. Yet entering Brazil Lane on foot, one feels a withdrawal from the hectic main road that runs through Jamestown. It is a highly strategic siting of land, one that throughout time negotiates and leads a changing Jamestown.
I am using the ‘critical geography‘ approach to studying its architecture. The advantage of doing so specifically with this house is derived from the wider narrative it constructs of urban growth in Accra : (bullet point narrative below)
**In 1836–the Tabon AfroBrazilian slaves returned to Accra. The head of one of the families, Mahama Nassau, built a one-storey house where the current house stands.The fact that he was able to acquire land is important—because it shows how the Ga society completely integrates outsiders into their community by allowing them to buy land, engage in trading activities and become part of their royal court.
The two middlemen: Architecture and Accra
The birth of Little Accra in the 17th century, describes Professor Wellington of Legon Univ., begins with two coinciding events: the collapse of the political seat of the inland Ga kingdom and erection of European trading forts along the coast. A fragile political environment from within pushed the Ga people to migrate towards the coast where their incidental meeting with the European traders set in motion a history that initially begins with economic mutualism. Located on the Dahomey Gap, the Ga migrants inherited land on the coastal savanna that was unable to sustain tree crops. In the words of John Parker: “the land quality of Accra has defined the economic history of the role of its people as the middleman—as traders not producers.”
If you have read anything on urban Africa you must have come across the phrase “African cities don’t work”. To some extent that it is true, which African city doesn’t know about electricity cuts, water shortages, etc etc.we could go on and on…
But this is not the type of ‘working’ I’m interested in, I think that type of working specifically is a result of not understanding how urban African dwellers ‘work‘ to meet the challenges of African city life.
A street-hawker may sell plantain chips in different areas of the city at different times during the week. Today she may finish working hours earlier because she has help from two cousins who have agreed to sell half of her plantain chips in a different area of the city. Tomorrow she may not be able to sell one-tenth of that quantity, because there is a road ban on her primary route because President Obama is in town. So she sells the roasted plantain instead of plantain chips in a small stall in front of her house. Tomorrow that stall will disappear, and she will back on the main road again. How can we spatially map this urban economic activity of such a dynamic nature?
This is one example of a home-based enterprise that I came across this summer in Jamestown, yet may range from kenke-selling, hair-braiding to miniature internet cafes. In these enterprises, the family members control the major factors of production (ie. money, time, labor force and space). Thus the architecture of these homes is the foremost intimate physical demonstration of this informal economy. Its site constantly absorbs new members who become part of a labor force and whose architecture is constantly being reshaped according to its inhabitants’ needs. The large extent to which and how it is practiced renders the household a crucial map in understanding this West African city. The household is the map that changes to sustain economic changes; it is within its architecture that hallways become temporary kitchens, kitchens become bedrooms to house new tenants or even where the house becomes the prime commodity itself for a family who seek alternative living conditions. The understanding of the household gives a deep understanding of the history and life of a small unit of society and furthermore, the understanding of the multiplicities of patterns that emerge from mapping similar households gives an urban framework with quality beyond numbers.
The house and the household are two different things. Yet employing both in understanding the agency of architecture is useful. I have recently become interested in a field of geography that explores architecture though a
“critical geography of architecture”
That is architecture is expressed through not only the view of the producers (architects, planners) but through the consumers (residents) who inhabit, move in and out and experience the built environment.
Here is an excerpt from an article by L. Lees on it:
“The new geography of consumption recognizes ‘the creativity of ‘ordinary consumers’ in actively shaping the meanings of the goods they consume in various local settings, while insisting also that the commodities themselves, the process of their production and the identities of their consumers cannot be thought of as fixed and essentia…By adopting such a perspective on the consumption and use of architecture, critical geographers would be able to explore the ways that the built environment is shaped and given meaning through the active and embodies practices by which it is produced, appropriated and inhabited. Such as approach to understanding the built environment unsettles the sharp public/private boundary between the production and consumption of architecture and its meanings. and opens up the question of its dwelling as politicized practice through which social identities, environments and their interrelations are performed and transformed.
The ff are the main advantages of such a method –
- examination of territory beyond architectural ideals.
- everyday spaces of domestic modernities to narrate the story of these buildings in their fullest sense.
- reality of architectural ideology
- experience of inhabited reality
Voices of the producer: “architect and building”
Voices of the consumer: “building and inhabitant”
The building/architecture becomes the middleman between the “inhabitant and architect”
