Dikan is a Ghana-based non-profit organization, committed to visual education, the advancement of vi
19/02/2026
Dikan Centre has announced one of the largest archival and digitisation milestones in Ghana’s history, revealing that over...
Read more; https://thebftonline.com/2026/02/19/dikan-centre-archives-over-70m-historical-records-digitally/
25/12/2025
Merry Christmas to the Dikan community — our friends, families, artists, researchers, and everyone who believes in memory and education. Thank you for being part of this growing home for Africa’s stories.
If your Christmas plans bring you out today, our doors are open. Come spend a quiet moment with Ghana’s stories. The and are open every day from 9am–6pm.
📍 Dikan, Accra
🎄 Open this Christmas
VisualEducation
21/12/2025
Last week, Ahenfie opened its doors — and Ghana’s memory found a home.
The opening of marked the beginning of a new public space dedicated to Ghana’s history, records, and shared memory. Ahenfie is not a museum in the Western sense. It is a palace of memory.
The exhibition on view, Preserving Ghana: The Living Archives of a Nation, brings together rare photographs, original documents, and historical artifacts drawn from one year of archival work by . On display are Kwame Nkrumah’s personal papers and photographs, Ghana Armed Forces records, early independence-era images, sports archives, chieftaincy records, and music archives documenting the history of Highlife in Ghana.
Together, these materials show how Ghana has been recorded, governed, celebrated, and remembered — across generations and institutions. Exhibition was curated by & the team.
Thank you to everyone who joined us last week and helped set this foundation. Thanks to the Hon. Abla Dzifa Gomashie, Ghana’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts.
Ahenfie is now open.�The work of memory continues.
📍 South La, Accra�🕰️ Freely Open to the public
LivingArchives
For over five decades, Prof. John Collins followed African music and popular culture with unmatched devotion — from Highlife bandstands to festivals, villages, studios, and the quiet corners where Ghana’s sound history was born. As a researcher, archivist, musicologist, and musician, he built one of the most important music archives on the continent.
But years of floods, humidity, termites, and collapsing storage placed this priceless history on the edge of disappearance. Photographs were soaked, tapes were warping, and manuscripts were fading. Ghana’s musical memory was fighting for its life.
For the past year, Dikan — through the — has worked to ensure this journey is never lost.
We are digitizing and preserving his millions of archival materials so scholars, musicians, and future generations can continue learning from the man who documented Ghana’s heartbeat. Soon, these archives will be accessible at the Dikan Library & Archives ( )
This is why institutions like Dikan exist — to protect what matters, to save what was almost lost, and to keep our stories alive.
22/11/2025
Ghana’s story lives in its archives.
For the first time, materials spanning 1802–2019—photographs, documents, films, and records—are being presented together in one landmark exhibition.
A year ago, Dikan established the Awo Institute to preserve, conserve, and research Ghana’s archives — the histories long neglected and at risk. Since then, we have digitized and processed millions of materials: state and military archives, highlife music, chieftaincy records, cultural histories, and more. Now, this work comes to life at Dikan Ahenfie, a place of memory and community.
Preserving Ghana opens December 13, 3pm at Dikan Center, Accra.
13/11/2025
Something meaningful is on its way. ✨📍
04/10/2025
Discover the Dikan Library
A home for Africa’s visual stories, art, and ideas.
Our doors are open to everyone — no membership needed, just curiosity. Step inside and explore one of Africa’s most remarkable collections of visual books, rare archives, and cultural history.
Whether you’re a researcher, student, artist, or wanderer, the Dikan Library welcomes you to read, reflect, and be inspired.
✨ Walk in, discover, and belong.
27/09/2025
Today at Dikan’s Awo Institute, 15 participants from diverse backgrounds came together for Writing with Highlife Archives with Prof. John Collins.
Through rare posters, recordings, and photographs from the Highlife collection, they explored the history and origins of Highlife. Each participant pitched a story or project idea, then began shaping it into writing rooted in the archives. The workshop turned Highlife archives into living tools for writing, equipping participants with skills to preserve and reimagine Ghana’s musical heritage for future generations.
27/09/2025
Writing with Archives
Facilitators;
Prof John Collins
The workshop began with a tour of Awo, led by , Executive Director of Dikan. Participants explored the vast Highlife music collections and the legacy of Prof. John Collins—uncovering stories of music and history.
23/09/2025
Left in a plane, returned in a plane.
Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown on 24 February 1966 in a coup while on a state visit to China and North Vietnam. Exiled in Guinea, he never set foot in Ghana again, but was made Honorary Co-President by Ahmed Sékou Touré and continued writing, mentoring liberation movements, and shaping Pan-African thought. His health declined, and he died in Bucharest, Romania, on 27 April 1972. First buried in Conakry, his remains were later flown back to Ghana—reinterred at Nkroful, his birthplace, and ultimately enshrined at the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in Accra. He left behind his wife, Fathia Nkrumah, and three children—Gamal, Samia, and Sekou Nkrumah—but also an unfinished mission.
Nkrumah’s body was laid to rest, but his dream of unity, dignity, and African freedom can never be buried. Nkrumah never dies. (Kwame Nkrumah collection\Dikan Library)