Janet Hess and team awarded NEH grant

October 5, 2023
Janet Hess

Professor Janet Hess's team, for which she serves as planning consultant, has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for "Ghana 57: African Art After Independence" which will produce a cross-Atlantic exhibition and text. Colleagues at the University of Michigan, the National Museum of Ghana, and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Accra, Ghana, have all been working together. "The project explores the pivotal role played by Ghana—its artists, activists, political leaders, and their interlocutors—in the continental story of the making of African art in the wake of Independence. In addition to examining the development of postcolonial national arts infrastructures and movements in Ghana and elsewhere on the African continent, the project also addresses the interactions of African artists, educators, and political leaders with American actors and institutions in the context of Cold War-era international diplomacy and pan-Africanist movements on both sides of the Atlantic." This NEH grant will produce a travelling art exhibition, a text and a national focus on the unique importance of Ghanaian liberation.