"THESE RADICAL ARTISTS TURN THE TABLES BY SENDING PROBLEMS OF THE 'FIRST WORLD'... WHICH THEY SUBMIT TO A NUMBER OF THINK TANKS THEY FOUNDED IN THE 'THIRD WORLD'..."
-Marina de Vries, Museum Magazine
"… BRILLIANTLY SIMPLE… GHANA THINK TANK SETS UP LABORATORIES IN SO-CALLED “DEVELOPING COUNTRIES” TO HELP SOLVE FIRST-WORLD PROBLEMS."
- Hili Person, ARTFORUM diary
Founded in 2006 by Christopher Robbins, John Ewing, and Matey Odonkor (Maria Del Carmen Montoya joined in 2009), the Ghana ThinkTank is an international collective that flips traditional power dynamics by allowing so-called “third world” communities to intervene in the lives of those living in “developed” nations, thus “develops the first world”.
Beginning with think tanks in Ghana, Cuba, and El Salvador, the collective has since expanded to include Mexico, Serbia, Indonesia, Sudan, and Morocco.
Projects:
Austin, TX
In 2015, the Fusebox Festival and the City of Austin commissioned the Ghana ThinkTank to develop a project that would interrogate people’s conceptions about their level of involvement in gentrification.
They began the process by initiated interviews with people concerned by, or involved with, the process of gentrification such as activists, residents, city-councilors, and small business owners. Through this research the devised a method to activate the process public by building a bicycle with two benches facing each other labeled with LED screens that gave participants two options of where to sit; either the “GENTRIFIERS!” or the “GENTRIFIED!” side.
The benches were associated with custom apps. The GENTRIFIERS sat at the “What’s your Austin Problem?” app, where they recorded their personal problems with Austin and the GENTRIFIED sat at the “What’s Your Solution?” app, where they could swipe through the growing list of 100+ problems. In this way Ghana ThinkTank aimed to flip the power dynamic in Austin in both an accessible and site specific way.
The American Riad
A 3 year long project focusing of skill-share and public art between Morocco and Detroit that aims to re-build a corner into a courtyard linking homes and businesses in Detroit.
This art and architecture collaboration will transform abandoned buildings and empty lots into an Islamic Riad: communal housing surrounding an elaborate and beautifully designed courtyard. In order to help counter-act the stigma Muslims and immigrants in America, this project works to adopt elements of Islamic and African Culture to solve American problems.
The idea developed by a think tank in Morocco sprouted from the belief that many US problems stem from social isolation. Members of the think tank recognized how "the American dream" of the single-family home separated and distanced neighbors from one another. Whereas they architecture of the Riad in Morocco creates community.
The goal of the project is to create 8-10 units of affordable - and beautiful - housing with 6 adjoining businesses. The business selected are those that both serve the unique needs of the North End, and are run by residents interested in preserving the North End’s history as a Black creative corridor.
References & Resources:
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