Ghana ThinkTank has been “Developing the First World” since 2006. They collect problems in the U.S. and Europe, and send them to a growing network of think tanks they’ve established in Cuba, Ghana, Iran, Mexico, El Salvador, and the U.S. prison system to analyze and solve. They then work with the communities where the problems originated to implement those solutions, whether they seem impractical, illegal or brilliant.
For Connecting Cities, and their residency in Liverpool, they proposed to develop a Ghana ThinkTank App that brings the entire process online. They worked with Liverpool-based Damibu, a software development studio who specialise in web and mobile applications for the public and health sector.
To continue their trajectory of building extravagantly strange kiosks, they spent time in the lab building a physical structure to house their new app. The new Ghana ThinkTank software comes embedded in the belly of a goat. It’s a kiosk, and a sculpture, and a way for visitors to participate in the Ghana ThinkTank process.
These kiosks are usually structures that collect problems, share solutions, invite participation, and express a mixture of art, history, and vernacular architecture.
They were inspired to create the goat sculpture after seeing a medieval painting of a young maiden with a unicorn resting on her lap. They found that the goat’s strange situation as a semi-domesticated and yet still extremely strong animal could be used to expresses some of their ideas about power, how it is gained and neutered, resilient and invisible.
The App was launched and activated through hubs in partner cities, towns and villages, by individuals who used it to submit problems and solutions.
