UEW Graphic Designer Donates Unique 'Adinkra-Spar' Artwork to National Museum
The collaboration between the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB), and the National Museum of Ghana reached a new milestone when Ebenezer Mensah, a final-year student from UEW’s Department of Art Education, officially donated his innovative graphic design project titled “Traditional Spade Card.”
The artwork, which served as Mensah’s final-year project, reinterprets the Western card game Spades, locally known as Spar, through the lens of Akan culture. Replacing the traditional European suits and ranks with Adinkra symbols and Ashanti kinship iconography, Mensah created a fully indigenised deck of cards that reflects Ghanaian cultural identity. The project demonstrates how graphic design can serve as both a medium for cultural reclamation and a tool for preserving heritage.
Explaining the concept behind his work, Mensah noted that his goal was to use design to reclaim and indigenise foreign cultural symbols. He said the donation would ensure that both his creation and Ghana’s visual vocabulary remain accessible for public study and appreciation by future generations.
Mr. Kwesi Essel-Blankson, Executive Director of GMMB, and Dr. Mahmood Malik Saako, Director of the National Museum, officially received the artwork. Mr. Essel-Blankson commended Mensah’s ingenuity, describing his work as a testament to the creative potential emerging from Ghanaian universities. He added that the museum exists to celebrate young artists and hoped future generations would take pride in such homegrown innovation.
Dr. Saako reaffirmed the museum’s commitment to deepening its collaboration with UEW under an existing Memorandum of Understanding. He announced ongoing plans to systematically acquire more student artworks to build a vibrant contemporary collection for academic and public use.
Mr. Ebenezer Kow Abraham, a lecturer at UEW who facilitated the donation, emphasised the significance of the partnership, describing it as the beginning of a sustained collaboration that would continually supply the museum with outstanding student works reflecting Ghana’s rich artistic and cultural identity.
