UK Goes to Ghana

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 4, 2009) -- After hosting President Barack Obama and his family this summer, the West African nation of Ghana welcomed students and faculty from the University of Kentucky. 

The first member of the UK community to arrive in Ghana was Monica Blackmun Visonà, an assistant professor of African art and art history at the UK Department of Art. She delivered a paper as part of the international conference "Revisiting Modernization" held in July at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Legon. Blackmun Visonà's lecture, "Ghanaian Modernism in a Postmodern Art World," presented the results of research she conducted in Ghana two years ago, and examined how the history of 20th century art is presented in Ghanaian universities and high schools.

The trip also allowed Blackmun Visonà to attend the opening ceremonies of PANAFEST, a celebration in Cape Coast that honors the descendants of Africans taken from the continent by the slave trade. This festival brings artists from all over West Africa to this famous port city, and supplied Blackmun Visonà with an opportunity to interview members of artist cooperatives from several African nations.

As Blackmun Visonà was preparing to return to Kentucky, a group of UK students arrived. Their visit was a UK Education Abroad program under the direction of Kwaku Addo, associate dean of the Graduate School and associate professor of nutrition and food science.

Before traveling to Africa this summer, students who signed up for the program learned about the history, culture, politics and people of Ghana during class meetings at UK in the spring semester. Upon completion of the meetings, students packed their bags for a two-week journey to the West African country during the university's first summer session.

Once in Ghana, the group took part in an extensive tour of the country, including visits to several historical and cultural places of interest like: Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana; Manhyia Palace, home of the Ashanti king; Elmina Castle, a center of slave-trade; and Kakum National Rain Forest. The group also visited the Kentucky Academy, a kindergarten school located in the village of Adjeikrom which was founded by Addo and his wife Esther, a nurse at UK Albert B. Chandler Hospital. The tour was led by Addo, who was born and raised in Ghana. He presented the participants with unique opportunities to investigate the positions of both Ghana and the United States in a global economy. Students also participated in a traditional drumming and dancing workshop.

Finally, a third program on the UK campus offered Kentucky educators the chance to explore Ghanaian arts and culture during a day-long workshop organized by Sonja Brooks, teacher outreach coordinator of the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky. The workshop included a presentation by MaryCarol Hopkins, associate professor of anthropology at Northern Kentucky University, who discussed the textiles, sculpture, metalwork and ceramics for which Ghana is famous. Additionally, a local drummer was on hand to demonstrate the complex musical traditions of West Africa as part of the workshop.

Blackmun Visonà, who holds a doctorate from the University of California Santa Barbara, has traveled extensively in Africa and conducted fieldwork in Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Ghana.

She is the principal author of the critically acclaimed survey "A History of Art in Africa." Her research for the book's chapters on the art of Northern Africa, Eastern Africa, the Nile Valley and the Bend of the Niger led to her interest in the arts of African Islam, and she has studied the archaeological record of many African sites. Blackmun Visonà's recent research evaluates theoretical issues raised by the critical reception of works by living African artists.

During 2004-2005, Blackmun Visonà was a senior fellow at the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution, where she worked on doctoral and post-doctoral research on the arts of the Lagoon peoples of southeastern Côte d’Ivoire. Her articles on the art history of these groups, who are distantly related to both the Baule and Asante, have appeared in scholarly journals such as African Arts.