Ghana Airways by Hakeem Adam was shown at IDFA DocLab 2022 as an experimental, non-linear audio installation with accompanying visuals, but it is also available online on Bandcamp as a linear, one-hour, 3-part audio series. The piece is Adam’s search for his post-colonial Ghanaian identity, and he’s interested in exploring unique modes of sound design to capture what he refers to as “oral knowledge.”

There was a lot that I did not quite understand when I first listened to this piece, and I got a lot more context and information from the interview that I did with Adam in Amsterdam. So I’d recommend either listening to the episodic series either before and/or after this interview since the narrative is deliberately sparse and self-described as “incoherent” (see below).

Adam says, “I refrain from describing Ghana Airways as a single entity (audio piece, website, installation, research work) [links added].” I also found it helpful to read the associated show notes and research, which wasn’t shown in the context of the IDFA DocLab installation, but perhaps could have been in some fashion as it did provide a lot of additional context for the piece.

I wanted to highlight a couple of quotes from Adam’s writing about Ghana Airways to provide a bit more context: