Accra, Ghana

Photographer: Sélim Harbi

Year of Submission: 2016 (Educators Edition) 

In a classroom at Accra University, Jacqueline wears a queen mask from the Baule, a people who three hundred years ago moved from what is now western Ghana to what is now central Côte d’Ivoire.

Jacqueline Nsiah, 32, is a language teacher, arts curator and pan-Africanist. After studying media anthropology at Berlin’s Frei University, Jacqueline lived in Brazil for two years before returning to Ghana to teach Portuguese at Accra University. In 2014, she curated the first edition of the Uhuru African Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro. Today, she curates film and educational events, exhibitions and concerts in Accra. One of the themes running through her work is connecting the history of the two continents on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.