GAAS tasks the State to preserve artistic monuments

The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS), questioning the whereabouts of the originals of the national flag and the Coat of Arms, has tasked the State to take immediate steps to preserve other national treasures.

The GAAS observed that creativity, which was nurtured, and also served as the foundation for development in society, had been killed in the country.

“Ghana has failed its artists miserably and let creativity down,” the Association said.

Professor Ablade Glover, a Fellow GAAS, at an inaugural lecture, complained, “Where is the original Ghana Flag, where is the original Coat of Arms, we seem to have lost everything, we have no diary for our national collections, we have given out culture”.

The lecture, organised by the GAAS, was on the topic: “An Audit of our Contemporary Art Heritage: the Rational for the Preservation of the Legacy and the Restoration of the Culture.”

It attracted a large crowd from the students’ front, academia, diplomatic missions and politicians, who nodded their heads softly, apparently in expression of regret of the lost legacy of the Ghanaian cultural artefacts, as the speaker made his presentation passionately.

The presentation sought to review the Ghanaian art legacy as the foundation for development and cultural renewal, thus surveying the entire creative performance from the traditional, through the colonial to the contemporary art scenes.

Prof Glover lamented that the Ghanaian traditional art, which was well known and has been collected profusely, end-up in European and American museums and galleries as well as in the collections of private individuals and former colonial administrators.

These people, he said, have bequeathed the trophies as inheritance belonging to their estates, thereby depriving the Ghanaian culture of its richness.

He also noted that the arts, which formed part of the contemporary culture, were facing what he called, "The avalanche of collectors, with the danger of depriving generations of the cultural material that should illuminate the journey for enlightened development."

Prof Glover, who is also the Director of Artists Alliance Gallery, called for a national crusade for the urgent collection of Ghana's contemporary art.

He challenged the leadership of GAAS, headed by Professor Akilapka Sawyer, to spearhead the crusade in order to preserve the legacy and restore the culture.