Artist and owner of the LOOM art gallery, Frances Ademola has likened the current state of the National Museum in Accra to a mausoleum. According to her, the country needs a living museum and not a mausoleum. Speaking at the 8th “Adventures in the Diaspora” [AiD] series under the theme “Reviving Ghana’s National Museum of Arts” at the Golden Tulip hotel in Accra, Mrs. Ademola recounted her experience during her visit to the Museum last Thursday. Her visit, she noted, brought to the fore the need to revive the operations of the National Museum to make it more attractive to the public. The current structure which houses the National Museum was commissioned on March 5, 1957 by Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and it was intended to among others, preserve the country’s rich cultural heritage. But the museum has over the years not received much patronage from the public. Public Relations Officer for the Museum, Barth Opoku Acheampong who was also at the AiD-organised event noted that mostly school children and foreign tourists patronise the museum, a situation most speakers at the forum described as worrying. But Mrs. Ademola noted that even the school children who visit the Museum do not get to learn much about the museum during their visits. According to her, a group of school children who were visiting the museum on the day she visited were literally “walked through the museum” with no form of explanation from the museum staff who was taking them on the tour about the things they were seeing in the museum. Mrs. Ademola described the situation as worrying and suggested that the National Museum employs attendants “who will tell you things [as you tour] lest it becomes like a mausoleum instead of a museum.” “If there were more exhibitions, not so much of private individuals... we have ten regions in Ghana, why not dedicate a month to each region to showcase their dance, cooking, handicrafts etc at the museum?”she suggested. Other contributors at the forum equally stressed the need for the National Museum to be made more vibrant than it currently is. A private arts collector and founder of the Dei Foundation, Seth Dei urged officials of the museum not to depend solely on government for the upkeep of the museum even though they are faced with budgetary constraints. Mr. Dei, himself a former board member of the Ghana Museum and Monuments Board, noted that the “museum needs to infuse more energy into their work. A lot of the problems [at the museum] can be solved without money. [For instance] You don’t need money to remove cobwebs” he said. The National Museum has about 25,000 objects including paintings, sculpted art forms and other works of art. Mr. Opoku Acheampong also called on adults in the society to visit the museum more often noting that “a nation without a culture is a soulless nation. We need to know about our culture so we can grow as a people.” The forum ended with the formation of a group to be known as Friends of the Museum whose task will include coming up with innovative ways of revamping the museum and making it come alive.