Ghana ThinkTank projects in the Middle East focus on facilitating contact between groups that are historically or politically polarized.
In 2014, Ghana ThinkTank was invited by ArtPort Gallery in Tel Aviv to collaborate with curator Maayan Sheleff to create an interchange between African refugees seeking asylum in Israel, and local residents who resented their presence.
Working with Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers along with local Israelis, they organized think tanks that collected problems from residents of the neglected neighborhood of South Tel Aviv as well as African refugees living in that same neighborhood. They asked each group to solve the problems of the other. Community members, the organized think tanks, and local organizations created plans to implement the proposed solutions. Solutions included an all female civilian patrol outfitted in uniforms of African cloth (image)
This effort to create constructive contact between groups was featured as part of a Tel Aviv-based art show “The Infiltrators.”
