University of Ghana Institute of African Studies mounts exhibition in honour of Ghanaian photographer Gerald Annan-Forson

The Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Ghana Thursday April 9, 2026 started a month-long photo exhibition in honour of one of Ghana’s enduring photographers, the Late Gerald Annan-Forson.

The exhibition features works by the Late photographer spanning 36 years.

Annan-Forson died in 2025 at the age of 78. In his long career, he also taught photography at the then Ghana Institute of Journalism.

The exhibition is titled “A Tapestry of Ghana through the Lens of Gerald Annan-Forson” and presents the work of Annan-Forson documenting Ghana’s political and social transformations from 1976 to 2012.

The Institute states that the exhibition is an invitation to roll with the cameras of Annan-Forson to visualize a history of Ghana.

“It opens vistas on some erstwhile notable landmarks and provides glimpses into the social and economic life of Ghana as well as euphoric moments at corridors of power of which he was closely related as a photographer,” it added.

In his welcome address at the opening of the exhibition, Professor Samuel Ntewusu, Director of the IAS, expressed gratitude to the IAS Teaching Museum and the JH Kwabena Nketia Archives for the joint exhibition. As a historian, he recounted the enormous significance of the photograph archives and their display for the public’s education.

Prof Ntewusu also emphasized the importance of history as a subject, and narrated his personal experience and academic journey, and how he had to overcome the downplaying of the importance of the study of history to eventually become a historian. He told his story to encourage the predominantly History Form One students from the Achimota School who made up the largest number among the audience.

He also demonstrated how his doctoral work on the history of combustible engines placed him in the field of engineering and the history of transportation.