This Research Edition supports the ongoing curatorial study Reflexive Tema and Global Elsewheres ... initiated in 2021 by Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh and Ato Annan. Its point of departure is the Tema Printing Press in Ghana’s First Republic (1960–1966) in relation to practices of architecture, art, and archives in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The Edition, which forms part of the project “Entangled Internationalism,” pieces together fragments of the incomplete story of the Tema Press and its relevance to Kwame Nkrumah’s republican vision for an industrialized Ghana, using a montage of archival and declassified materials—including reports, memos, letters, maps, newspaper clippings, and photos. The second part of the book features Annan’s artistic exploration of Ghana’s presence in the Münzkabinett coin collection at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections).
Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh is a curator/critic based in Kumasi, Ghana, and a key member of blaxTARLINES. Ato Annan is an artist and co-director of the Foundation for Contemporary Art – Ghana.
