#3 Decoso Meeting:

Reflexive Tema and Global Elsewheres

Contributors

• Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh
• Ato Annan
• Doreen Mende
• Lea Marie Nienhoff
• Nick Aikens
• René Boer

Artists, researchers and curators Ato Annan and Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh offer a report from their collective research Reflexive Tema and Global Elsewheres … : The Tema Printing Press (a.k.a Government Printing Press – Tema), completed in 1964, emerged from Ghana’s educational programme in line with its post-war industrialisation agenda during its first Republic (1960-1966). The Press— realised through an agreement between the government of Ghana and the German Democratic Republic via Polygraph Export G.M.B.H. Leipzig— functioned as one of the state’s wings of printing dedicated to producing newspapers, literary publications, and educational materials such as textbooks for schools. As one local newspaper at the time put it, “with the establishment of the Tema Press, Ghana has made a big leap in the promotion of literary and cultural  currents in the African revolution with the ultimate goal of Continental Union Government of Africa.” Beginning with this national publishing establishment as its muse, the presentation by Ato Annan and Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh investigates the relevance of the state-run institution to the emancipatory project of political, economic, and intellectual independence, while coming to terms with the relations between Ghana and the so-called Eastern Bloc during the mid-to-late 20th century. The presentation dovetails into understanding the zeitgeist of architecture in Ghana at the time, from its post-Independence International Style orientation into Tropical Modernist variants. Critic and curator René Boer contributes to this exchange as a respondent.