In 2013 the U.S. State Department and Bronx Museum of Art selected Ghana ThinkTank to work as cultural ambassadors in Morocco. The project was part of smARTpower, which sends American visual artists abroad to collaborate with local artists and young people around the world on community-based art projects.
Ghana ThinkTank commissioned a local painter to depict his perception of American problems on a donkey cart that was then converted into a solar-powered media center and teahouse. Traveling through rural villages in the cart, Ghana ThinkTank asked locals to help solve problems that were submitted by Americans.
Moroccans focused on Americans’ social isolation: “Your problem is your architecture,” some said. “Each family is separated from others.” Their solution: Stop the American obsession with single-family homes, and instead build Moroccan-style Riads, which are comprised of shared housing surrounding a common courtyard.
This project has become the most far-reaching of any of our efforts so far, turning into what will be a 5 year project in its own right as we implement the Moroccan think tank solution as an engine for stimulating cultural end economic rejuvenation in the north end of Detroit. Click here to go view the Detroit project.
