Arts and GH Heritage
‘Culture Is Our Power’: Rocky Dawuni Joins Rising Chorus Against Demolition of Ghana’s Historic Arts Centre
ACCRA — Grammy-nominated musician Rocky Dawuni has added his powerful voice to a growing movement of artists, historians, and cultural advocates demanding that the government of Ghana halt plans to demolish the Center for National Culture, known to many as the Arts Center, to make way for the ambitious Marine Drive Tourism Investment Project.
In a now-viral video posted on Facebook, Dawuni stood on the grounds of the sprawling cultural hub in central Accra and issued an emotional appeal to President John Dramani Mahama, the Ministry of Tourism, and the Ministry of Culture.
“Yes, my people, this is Rocky Dawuni. So right now I am at the Centre for National Culture. This is an amazing, amazing real estate for cultural development in this country,” he said, panning his camera to show areas falling into disrepair.
But his message was not about neglect alone. It was about survival.
“This space is actually one of the places that has been earmarked to be destroyed as part of the Marine Drive vision that has been going on,” Dawuni revealed.
An Incubator for Generations of Artists
The Center for National Culture, originally built under Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, has served for decades as a vital incubator for the nation’s creative community. It houses galleries, performance spaces, workshops, and the famous arts market where local artisans sell textiles, beadwork, wood carvings, and paintings to tourists and Ghanaians alike.
For generations of musicians, painters, sculptors, and craftspeople, the centre has been more than a building—it has been a home.
“This is an incredible space, a space that was built to help kind of fast track and inspire many artists, you know, galleries, national galleries, you know, a place where arts and all these people, all these creatives, this is their space,” Dawuni said. “We have to protect this space.”
A Face Lift, Not a Demolition
Dawuni’s intervention is the latest in a rising chorus of opposition. Ghanaian playwright and tour guide Nii Ayi Solomon has also joined calls to preserve the centre, urging the Ga Mantse, King Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, to intervene.
“I wish that the Ga Mantse can stop them from destroying the arts centre,” Solomon told Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z. “I cannot fathom the fact that Kwame Nkrumah had this vision; every region has their cultural centre. You can’t tell me that you are going to do a project in Kumasi so you are breaking down the Kumasi cultural centre.”
Solomon argued that the centre’s historical significance and its current function as a living creative space cannot be replicated elsewhere.
“The Arts Centre was built by Nkrumah and it served its purpose. To promote the arts and culture of the jurisdiction. This is what we have in Accra. You are destroying it, and going to build what for the people?” he asked.
He also advised contractors to find a way to build the Marine Drive Project without touching the arts centre, emphasizing: “No, the Cultural Centre has its own uniqueness. The moment you break it down, you have destroyed everything.”
A broader coalition of creative artists, including playwright and poet Oswald Okaitei, first raised alarms when demolition plans emerged in 2021. Their position has never changed: “We NEED a face lift, not a demolition.”
The Marine Drive Vision
The Marine Drive Tourism Investment Project is a massive 241-acre redevelopment scheme designed to transform Accra’s waterfront into a world-class tourism enclave. The project envisions an iconic skyline for the capital, with hotels, retail spaces, entertainment venues, and essential infrastructure to support Ghana’s growing creative industries. Completion is expected in 2027.
President Mahama recently announced that work on the stalled project would soon resume. But for opponents, the question is not whether Accra needs development—but at what cultural cost.
The Arts Centre sits on the beachfront land earmarked for the project. Earlier plans suggested the art market would be relocated to Kawukudi, a neighborhood in Accra, but critics argue that relocation is not the same as preservation.
‘We Don’t Need to Rebuild What We Already Have’
Dawuni was adamant that the solution is not destruction followed by reconstruction.
“We have to work very hard for assets like this, not to leave it in disrepair, and then also transform it into something that does not really serve the creativity and arts of this country,” he said.
“Culture is our power,” Dawuni declared. “So Ghana, stand up please. All of these places are important. Let’s look out for these great places that are all falling in disrepair and then re-bring them back as a means to inspire our people.”
His closing words were direct and unambiguous:
“We don’t need to rebuild and recreate something that we already have. Please protect the Center for National Culture.”
No Formal Response
As of now, the government has not issued a formal response to Dawuni’s video or the renewed calls from the creative community. The Marine Drive Project remains scheduled to resume, and the Arts Centre’s fate hangs in the balance.
But the chorus is growing louder. From Grammy-nominated musicians to local playwrights and tour guides, a broad cross-section of Ghanaian cultural life is demanding that the nation’s heritage not be sacrificed for waterfront development.
The message has been delivered. Now, the Mahama government must decide whether to listen!
In Accra, where traffic hums and creativity often outpaces infrastructure, Amoako Boafo is building something quieter than fame — and far more lasting.
For years, Boafo’s name has travelled faster than most Ghanaian artists before him, carried by auction headlines and global exhibitions. But his latest move resists that narrative.
With the launch of dot.ateliers, he is shifting the spotlight from individual success to collective possibility.
The residency, housed in a striking building designed by David Adjaye, is more than studio space. It is an intervention — a response to a gap many artists in Ghana know too well.
Boafo speaks candidly about it: the absence of support systems, the lack of accessible creative infrastructure, the long wait for validation that often comes from outside the continent.
His answer is practical and personal. He has opened his own creative environment to others, offering not just space but mentorship and visibility.
Artists like Eric Adjei Tawiah and Stephen Allotey are part of a growing circle benefiting from this shared ecosystem — one rooted in collaboration rather than competition.
This shift reflects a broader movement across the country. Initiatives like Red Clay Studio and Nkyinkyim Museum signal a generation of artists investing back into Ghana’s cultural future, often without institutional backing.
What Boafo is building feels intentional in a different way. It challenges the idea that success must be exported to be meaningful. Instead, it insists that global recognition can return home, take root, and multiply.
In a city fast becoming an art world destination, dot.ateliers stands as both a statement and a question: what happens when African artists no longer wait for systems — but create their own?
He practices the words in his head long before he ever speaks them aloud—proverbs he rarely uses, lines polished for a moment that will define far more than his relationship.
In many Ghanaian homes, this quiet rehearsal signals the beginning of kokooko—the ceremonial “knock” that precedes marriage and binds not just two people, but two families.
To an outsider, the act may seem symbolic, even quaint. A group arrives, elders in tow, and a spokesperson—often a man steeped in oral tradition—announces their purpose in carefully coded language.
“We saw a beautiful flower in this house,” he might say, never naming the bride directly. It’s diplomacy wrapped in poetry, a reminder that in Ghanaian culture, marriage is not a private contract but a communal accord.
What unfolds next is part theatre, part test. The bride’s family may playfully present the “wrong” woman, drawing laughter while quietly assessing the groom’s resolve.
Beneath the humour lies a deeper cultural logic: seriousness must be proven, intentions weighed, and respect demonstrated.
Yet the most intriguing aspect of knocking happens before the door is ever touched. Families investigate one another—histories, reputations, values—ensuring compatibility extends beyond romance. It’s due diligence rooted in tradition.
Today, the ceremony adapts to modern life—shorter, sometimes more relaxed—but its essence remains intact.
The knock still carries weight. It is permission sought, dignity preserved, and heritage performed. In a rapidly changing world, kokooko endures as a powerful reminder that love, in Ghana, still answers to something greater than itself.
Value, we’re told, lives in the object—gold locked in rock, wealth shaped into form. But what if value isn’t in the material at all, but in the eye that beholds it?
That quiet provocation sits at the heart of Senegalese artist Caroline Gueye’s latest work, Wurus, set to debut at the 61st Venice Biennale.
At first glance, the installation draws on gold’s long and complicated story—its celestial origins, its role in trade, its entanglement with power. But Gueye resists the obvious. Gold is not the destination here; it is the doorway.
Through polymer, bronze, and brass forms, she builds a layered experience that moves from science to sensation, asking visitors to reconsider how value is constructed in the first place.
Curated by Massamba Mbaye, Wurus unfolds as a physical journey. Works appear through narrow openings or sit embedded within the architecture, forcing the viewer to shift position, to look again, to question what is seen and what is assumed.
It’s an approach that feels strikingly relevant to West African histories, where gold has long been both a source of wealth and a site of extraction, negotiation, and loss.
For Ghanaian audiences, the resonance is immediate. From the ancient Akan gold trade to contemporary debates around mining and environmental cost, gold carries layered meanings that extend far beyond its market price.
Gueye’s work taps into this shared regional memory, but reframes it—placing emphasis not on ownership, but perception.
Her background in astrophysics quietly shapes the work, not as spectacle but as method. The idea that gold originates from cosmic events reframes it as something universal, even fleeting.
In that sense, Wurus feels less like an exhibition and more like a question: if value is not fixed, who decides what matters?
‘Culture Is Our Power’: Rocky Dawuni Joins Rising Chorus Against Demolition of Ghana’s Historic Arts Centre
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