East Legon Past Forward is a project investigating the spatial, socio-cultural and migratory characteristics of Abotsiman, one of the few remaining grown neighborhoods of East Legon, Accra, and the implications of its urban transformation.
The magazine, East Legon Past Forward, presents narrative and artistic field research created in and around Abotsiman, Accra, in September 2018. The team consisted of four students of architecture from the University of Applied Arts Vienna, three students of architecture from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, and one student of international development from Lund University. Texts by invited authors engage with intrinsic topics at hand, such as urban sprawl, gentrification, land speculation, planning and lack of planning, demographic inequalities and economic pressures, and the lack of agency of communities such as Abotsiman. The scenario is specific and, at the same time, representational of the processes and interrelationships occurring in Accra and other urban agglomerations on the African continent.
The panellists discuss the potentials and futures of urban situations such as Abotisman in East Legon, and how existing spatial, socio-cultural and economic heterogeneities could be used and altered to create more diverse and sustainable urban environments and cities for all its inhabitants.
3:30PM
Welcome address: Rosemary Orthner, Honorary Consul of Austria in Ghana, partner at Orthner Orthner & Associates, and representative of the Abotsiman community
3:45PM
Short presentations by panellists Baerbel Mueller, Dominique Petit-Frère, David Kojo Derban, Nii-Ashie Adjaye, Namata Serumaga-Musisi, Desmond Appiah
4:15PM – 5:15PM
Panel discussion moderated by Jürgen Strohmayer / [A]FA
