Carlien Donkor wins grant from the British Museum’s Endangered Material Knowledge Programme

PhD candidate Carlien Donkor has won a grant from the British Museum’s Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP). She receives the grant for her project that documents the traditional stilt construction of the Nzulezo Community in Ghana. EMKP is a major grant-giving programme supported by the Arcadia Fund.

Carlien Donkor’s project, ‘A Stick in Time’, captures the endangered craft of Nzulezo’s stilt construction. This entails carpentry, joinery and artisanry using raffia palm sticks and other natural materials found in the Amanzule Wetlands in which the Nzulezo stilt village can be found.

Exposure to the ‘outside’
The centuries-old skill is under threat as the community, which was once isolated due to its geographical location, is now popular after its 2001 addition to UNESCO’s tentative list and the consequent touristification efforts by locals and the government. The exposure to the ‘outside’ has brought new interests into the area, including new tastes in building materials which are neither native to the natural surroundings nor to the ancestral craft of stilt construction.

Community sense at risk
The sense of community which was strengthened through this collective labour, and is also reflected in the closely-knit layout of the stilt structures, is equally at risk. While the project team acknowledges that ‘culture is dynamic’, their primary objective is to capture not only the endangered traditional construction techniques of Nzulezo but also the changes its people have embraced to adapt their spaces to time, showcased in an overlay of multi-media between the ‘old’ and ‘new’.

Endangered Material Knowledge Programme
The Endangered Material Knowledge Programme gives grants to support the documentation of material knowledge systems that are under threat and in danger of disappearing. It also provides free access by stewarding that knowledge in the open-access digital EMKP repository dedicated to its preservation.

Living on and with water
Carlien Donkor is a PhD candidate at the African Studies Centre Leiden with an interest in traditional ingenuity and historical practices of living on and with water. She has professional experience as an architect, project manager, researcher and teacher. Her PhD topic inquires into the uncertainties and complexities of history, heritage and strategic actors, and if and how they affect present life within the community, which may inform future strategies for inclusive development in Nzulezo. 

Congratulations to Carlien and her team, that is complemented by Eileen Stornebrink and Gideon Asmah. Prof. Marleen Dekker is the ASCL’s representative for the project.