We Must Preserve Our Culture Heritage with Art painting-Prof Ama Engmann urges Ghanaians

Professor Rachel Ama Engmann, an Archeologist with Stanford University, who is also a descendant of former Danish Governor Cal Engmann has underscored the relevance of art painting and photography in preserving and protecting the cultural heritage of every nation.

According to her, art painting remained a powerful tool that could capture moments, history and our heritage to inspire future generations.

She noted that preserving the country’s cultural heritage constituted an essential cultural base for enhancing the cohesion of the nation, boosting tourism, and invigorating investors’ spirit for socio-economic development.

The Christiansburg Archaeological Heritage Project (CAHP) is undertaking art paintings on the walls of houses at Osu in Accra to depict their cultural heritage and historical livelihood to advance tourism for the progress of the community.

The Project has since identified and painted over 10 ancestral houses by their trained descendants. The paintings portrayed images of warriors, scholars, physicians, steel workers, fishermen and fishmongers, food vendors, and tailors, among others to tell their stories.

Some of the houses echo the likes of Randolph, the famous historian and an indigene of Osu, and Victor Nanka-Bruce, also a renowned physician, politician, and journalist from the area.

To ensure the young ones appreciate and learn more about the project, it established CAHP Community Library to give the children in skills in drawing.

Speaking to Journalists after inspecting most of the painting walls, Professor Ama Asaa Engmann, the lead of the CAHP explained that the project was being carried out in cooperation with the Osu community and had been working for the past nine years digging and discovering the archaeological excavation at the Christiansburg Castle.

According to her, the archival work started earlier, but the excavating began in 2014, and had discovered a few artifacts, which included slate fragments, typically used for writing, faunal remains, seeds, metals, stones, daub, and cowries, among others.

She added, “This year we decided to expand the project so with a grant from the Mellon Foundation in New York we included heritage, history, and art project, hence the art paintings on the walls to tell the stories of some of the historical family houses and notable characters in the community.”

Prof Engmann, a descendant of former Danish Governor Cal Engmann believed the collection of the artifacts would assist in the plans to develop the Osu Castle into a museum.

She, therefore, appealed for financial support to replicate the project in other regions of the country to enhance the heritage of Ghanaians and to promote tourism and economic growth of the country.

Speaking to some of the trained artists they said the project had impacted their lives and other members of the community, especially children and adolescent girls by minimizing harmful social vices such as teenage pregnancies and drug abuse.

Madam Olga Pappoe, the Manager of the Library said the provision of the facility has brought some transformation in the learning and drawing skills of children in the area and appealed to public-spirited individuals and organisations for support.

“Painting, besides showing history, captures moments we seem to be losing. Any painting that captures moments and heritage to inspire the future needs to be encouraged,” he said.

“These are relevant paintings capturing moments of our ancestors, emotions, they excite beyond imagination”,s he remarked while going around to view the variety of paintings displayed on the walls along the streets.

She said anything that helped to trace back what the people were and promoted the African heritage, spirit, and human dignity fosters unity and therefore must be encouraged.

Prof Engmann also called on the government of Ghana to expedite action on the processes leading to the conversion of the Christianborg Castle (Osu Castle) into a museum.

She noted that the conversion of the Osu Castle to a museum would help improve the tourism potentials of the castle and also enrich the rich history of the one’s Danish Transatlantic Slave and British Colonial castle.

Prof. Engmann said so far, the Christianborg Castle has discovered 180,000 artifacts that have been expedited at the castle for the past nine years and is ready to display them to support the museum project.

She added that even though the Osu Castle is not as prominent as the Cape Coast Castle, its rich history is untapped adding that the nine years of the expedition have uncovered that there was a village under the Christianborg Castle which many Ghanaians are not aware of.

The Christianborg Archeological Heritage Project is been financed by the Millan Foundation and is a community-engaged archeological heritage where local artists were tasked to mirror some of the artifacts dug at the Osu Castle on the walls to depict the culture, life and historical accounts of the Castle and it inhabitants.

The project which started in 2014 officially has two phases, the aspect where young children in the community are engaged to paint some of the artifacts discovered during the expedition, establishing a community library where these young ones can visit to learn reading and take archeological classes and other aspect is where the project focuses on engaging the youth in the community through painting to resolve the unemployment, teenage pregnancy, and drug addiction situation.