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Oral history interview with Kobina Ansah

Anacostia Community Museum

Object Details

General
Associated documentation for this interview is available in the Anacostia Community Museum Archives.
Title created by ACMA staff using text written on sound cassette, contents of audio recording, textual transcript, and/or associated archival documentation.
Names
Ansah, Kobina
Collection Creator
Smithsonian Institution. Anacostia Community Museum
Place
Ghana
Africa
Washington (D.C.)
United States
Occupation
Artists
Serigraphers
Topic
Businesspeople
Emigration and immigration
Serigraphy
T-shirts
Political art
Motion picture industry
Associations, institutions, etc.
Violence
Guns
Interviews
Culture
Ghanaians
Africans
See more items in
Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity among Black Immigrants in Washington, D. C. Exhibition Records
Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity among Black Immigrants in Washington, D. C. Exhibition Records / Series 3: Oral History Interviews
Sponsor
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
Extent
2 Digital files
1 Sound cassette
Date
1992 December 08
Archival Repository
Anacostia Community Museum Archives
Type
Archival materials
Digital files
Sound cassettes
Citation
Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity among Black Immigrants in Washington, D. C. exhibition records, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Collection Rights
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Note
The total playing time of interview recording is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Scope and Contents
Kobina Ansah spoke about his large family, many with a variety of artistic inclinations; his educational experience; his early jobs in radio and film industries in Ghana; why he migrated to the United States; an encounter with the police not long after he arrived in Washington, DC; and his expectations about the United States prior to arriving in the US. Ansah spoke about why he began silkscreen printing and making tee shirts; expressing his creative and writing ideas, including political statements, on tee shirts; limiting his business to the African market; specific statements, related to African culture and what is happening in Africa, written on his tee shirts; contract work for Ghanaian and African groups; his relationship with customers; and the quality of his work. Ansah explained the popularity of tee shirts in Ghana; the reaction of Ghanaians in Ghana to his tee shirts; his design and screen printing process, in detail; why he wants to return to the film industry in some capacity; and the conditions that would need to change for him to return to Ghana. He expressed his thoughts about Ghanaian and African organizations and institutions in the Washington, DC; and why Ghanaians leave Ghana. Ansah spoke about the film industry in Ghana and why African films are not being shown in western countries; the concerns Ghanaians have about their family members living in Washington, DC because of the violence; his perception of the violence; and his thoughts about guns and weapons. Interview is in English. Digital audio files include white noise and static. Interviewee's voice is intelligible.
Collection Restrictions
Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist to make an appointment: ACMarchives@si.edu.
Related link
Record ID
ebl-1712088000981-1712088003367-0
Metadata Usage
CC0
GUID
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/qa7bf45fa68-3ab9-4bac-bd51-521a0cebecc2

Related Content

  • Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity among Black Immigrants in Washington, D. C. Exhibition Records

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