In November 2019, the foundation expanded its pre-existing 1970’s architecture with a new concrete structure designed by architects Baerbel Mueller and Juergen Strohmayer. The new space, which seems to hover atop Nubuke’s plush grounds, wraps around the area and faces the foundation’s older one-story building. Situated across two floors, it features an abundance of indoor and outdoor spaces, that cater to the local climate and surrounding landscape. At the core of Nubuke’s mission is to make Ghanaian art, culture, history and heritage accessible to all. Since its founding it has served as a beacon for art from West Africa, both regionally and internationally.

Founded by Ghanaian-Nigerian art consultant and collector Adora Mba, Ada, named after Mba whose family calls her “Ada”, the commercial art gallery opened on October 15, 2020 with a solo show of works by Nigerian artist Collins Obijiaku titled Gindin Mangoro: Under the Mango Tree. The gallery’s 850 square-metre space is located in Accra’s Villagio Vista, a luxury apartment complex known for its yellow Kente-inspired (Ghanaian fabric of interwoven cloth strips) exterior. Mba’s mission is to showcase works by promising emerging artists working across the African continent and in the diaspora and nurture the next generation of African artists and collectors. 

Arushi (2020), Chukwudubem Ukaigwe, I No Be Gentleman (at all o),  ADA\ contemporary art gallery, June-August 2021. Courtesy ADA\ contemporary art gallery

Hamid Nii Nortey: Cross Hatching Affluence, exhibition view, ADA\ contemporary art gallery, May-June 2021. Courtesy ADA\ contemporary art gallery

Situated in the predominantly Muslim neighborhood of Fadama in Greater Accra is artist Rufai Zakari’s pop-up studio. Based between Accra and Bawku, he’s set up this temporary space here while his wife gives birth. Born in 1990 and a graduate from the Ghanatta College of Art and Design, Zakari’s work, made of dozens of recycled plastic bottles, wrappers, paint and other found materials, examines consumerism, labour, trade, and the perils of industrialisation in contemporary Ghanaian society. Inside his studio several men actively work to cut the recycled plastic sheets from found bottles in the neighbourhood to then transform them into colourful works of art. The process is meticulous and often close to 1,000 plastic bottles are needed to create one artwork. Zakari and his assistants are busy creating artworks which translates into the recycling of several thousand plastic bottles per week. The result are artworks of African figures in various stances, gestures and moods depicted with much joy and optimism through their lively colours and forms. Zakari is also the founder of the Rujab Eco-Art Foundation in his hometown of Bawku, which encourages locals to create art while at the same time educating them on why recycling is so crucial for the wellbeing of Ghana’s streets. 

Since she was a young girl growing up in Alabama, art has always fascinated Accra-based collector and art patron Nish McCree. She recalls fondly on memories of exploring her grandmother’s collection of art and other objects—“her treasure trove of beautiful things”—an experience that inspired McCree’s own art collecting with a focus that she began years later while working in Washington DC. In August 2018 she moved to Accra after several years in Tanzania. Since moving to Ghana, McCree has committed to collecting and championing art from Africa as a way to encourage sustainability and cultural and economic growth across the continent. In addition to collecting work by emerging and established artists, particularly from West Africa, she is launching a new digital advisory platform called the Cowrie Culture, dedicated to nurturing the art scene in Africa through advocacy work particularly catered to looking at how growth in the arts and culture sector in Africa can promote social and economic development in the continent. 

Located within the haunting old structure of a former pharmaceutical factory in the Labadi district of Accra, Noldor Artist Residency opened its doors in 2020 as one of Ghana’s premier artist residencies. Founded by Ghanaian Joseph Awuah-Darko, who calls himself “a cultural producer” and is an artist, collector and graduate of Sotheby’s Institute in London, Noldor, and named after the second clan of elves in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the residency provides selected artists with studio space and art supplies during a 5-10 week residency programme or a fellowship programme or a senior fellows programme for mid-career or established artists who wish to practice in the space. Committed to nurturing the creative and artistic development of artists from across Africa, with a focus on Ghana and West Africa, Noldor also stages exhibitions of each artists’ completed body of work after they conclude their residency.

Just an hour’s flight away from Accra in Tamale, a city in northern Ghana, are several artist-run project spaces established by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama, one of Ghana’s most internationally recognised artists working today. Situated in various locations in Tamale, a visit to all three allows one to view the city’s sprawling urban landscapes with its verdant vistas, colourful mosques and vibrant street markets. The first space, the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA), is a space dedicated to exhibitions, research, a cultural repository and artists’ residency. It offers a diverse, year-round programme dedicated to developing critical discourse concerning Ghanaian and international art. It is affiliated with blaxTARLINES KUMASI, a project space for contemporary art in Kumasi, Ghana. 

Most recently, Mahama opened additional spaces, Red Clay, in September 2020, which serves as places for research, community development, art residencies, and exhibitions, and Nkrumah Voli-Ni, that opened in April 2021 on the site of a former silo and serves an institution for archaeological memories, ecological ideas and forms and critical discourse. Presently, the exhibition A Diagnosis of Time: Unlearn what you have learned runs through all three sites until November 3 and features works by Nastio Mosquito, Zaneli Muholi, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Eric Gaymfi, Ibrahim Mahama and Jeanette Ehlers, among others. 

Established in 2017 by artist and performer Elisabeth Efua Sutherland, Terra Alta is an artist-led performing arts space in Accra characterised by an open-air stage and several large containers that serve as places for research, classes, and rehearsals. It offers a year-round programme of performances and events in addition to artists residencies open to artists from across Africa and internationally. Sutherland received her Bachelor’s in Theater from DePauw University in Indiana, USA and her Master’s in Contemporary Performance Making from Brunel University in London. Having had the opportunity to study and work abroad in the US and Europe, Sutherland wanted to bring a premier performing arts space like the ones she had performed in to Ghana. She also wanted to create a space dedicated to research and development rather than driven solely by capital driven creation.

In 2015 she was given land that her grandmother, Efua Sutherland, a prominent Ghanaian playwright, director, poet, and cultural activist, had purchased during the fifties. The land serves as Terra Alta’s present location. She started building by placing several large containers that one finds there now. It’s called Terra Alta, meaning “high ground” in Italian, due to the fact that was a marshland when Sutherland found it. In order to make it suitable for performance work, she had to raise the ground about five feet. “We had to keep raising parts of the ground and also metaphorically we lift people’s spirits with our work here and that is one of my missions for Terra Alta,” said Sutherland. “I want it to be a place that lifts artists up, encourages them, makes them feel free and sustained in their work.”

STAY: Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City; Labadi Beach Hotel; Zaina Lodge in Tamale 

EAT: Front/Back, a members club in Accra with African and Diaspora food, music and art; Pomona, an Italian restaurant in Accra; The Mix, a new rooftop restaurant in Osu, Accra in The Mix Design Hub, a place that caters to design, cuisine and culture; Santoku, contemporary Japanese food in the upscale Villagio Vista residential complex; Buka restaurant, serving traditional Ghanaian cuisine in Osu, Accra