Celine Henri-Agyemang is a descendant of Asantehene Nana Agyeman Prempeh I on her patrilineal side - through Prempeh’s daughter, Oheneba Ruth Yaa Afreh Prempeh. Her doctoral research work with the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom is not surprisingly about Prempeh’s exile; situating African political history within transnational and Indian Ocean frameworks and ‘to broader debates on empire,
global order and contemporary politics of Africa…”

She had previously studied for an MSc Africa and International Development at the University of Edinburgh on how political imagery of suffering as in Prempeh’s exile, reflected decades later in the Biafran civil war in Nigeria and its humanitarian engagement. This interest had been propelled from her undergraduate studies at the University of Hull where she obtained a 1st Class Honours in History.

Henri-Agyemang’s approach in museology is not just in history and its transnational dimensions but how these affect sustainable development in culture. She has had the experience of working at the UK Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Office and was Lead for Clearview Research in London for the UK Parliamentary Select Committee on Human Rights as well as been a project evaluator of Joint Inspection
Unit of the United Nations in Geneva.

In all these she hopes for an, “…opportunity to place my research directly in service of the Museum’s collections and public programming, helping build the institutional and interpretative infrastructure that will allow Manhyia to read with the same seriousness abroad as it already commands at home.”

Her proposal of cultural heritage installation to the museum, The Porcupine Army: Visualising Asante Military Power, will be one of the projects to be implemented. “Looking forward”, she says, “I would like my curatorial practice to work towards recognitions such as the ICOM Award for Sustainable Development which celebrates museums that advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”

A certified history teacher, she had been a Teaching Fellow at the Department of History of the University of Bristol and is a published academic who will also be involved with the Director of the Museum in the work of cultural cooperations with partners in London.