Oral histories
Recorded conversations and contemporary voices accompany archival records and historical interpretations.
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Digital Memory & Democracy · Audiowalk
Anton Wilhelm Amo Heritage Audiowalk & Archive
Sites of memory, voices and archival traces across borders. A bilingual, community-led audio archive about the life, work and remembrance of the eighteenth-century philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo.
The audiowalk is hosted by its creators. These links open the public project outside the Who Owns Memory? website.
Listen · Locate · RememberConceptual illustration
01 / The story
Who has the authority to tell Amo’s story?
Anton Wilhelm Amo’s life crosses the boundaries of conventional European intellectual history. His subsequent remembrance crosses further boundaries: between libraries, cities, monuments, community organisations and generations.
The Anton Wilhelm Amo Heritage Audio Archive brings historical research into conversation with oral histories, recordings, images, places and the work of people who have kept Amo’s memory visible. The archive presents multiple perspectives on how an eighteenth-century African philosopher is represented in public space today.
Its organising principle is listening. Historical evidence and community knowledge are encountered together, without treating any one institution as the sole authority over memory.
Central public-history question
“Who has the authority to map, preserve and narrate Anton Wilhelm Amo’s memory?”
02 / Places & histories
A memory that travels
The archive begins with Amo’s life between West Africa and eighteenth-century Europe. He studied at the University of Halle, completed a doctorate at Wittenberg and taught at German universities. Today, the traces of his life and changing public reception are distributed across many sites and collections.
The project connects places associated with his intellectual history and later remembrance to networks of community knowledge in Europe and West Africa. These places are not presented as one fixed itinerary: the audiowalk supports different routes and remote exploration.
Places featured in the wider archive:
HalleWittenbergJenaBerlinBraunschweigWolfenbüttelGöttingenHanoverGhanaThe Netherlands
Locations above are drawn from the project’s public description; they are not a geographical map or a suggested walking route.
Historical points of reference
Across three centuries
1727
Amo begins studies at Halle.
1734
Doctorate completed at Wittenberg.
1736–38
Teaching at Halle and Wittenberg.
2026
The contemporary digital audio archive is developed and presented.
Dates are based on the project description published by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. They provide historical context, not a complete biography.
03 / Methods & participation
What can a moving archive do?
The project combines digital mapping, sound, historical sources and community perspectives. It offers ways to discover where memory is made—and whose knowledge has been left out of more conventional accounts.
Site-based listening
Locative audio connects streets, university sites, monuments and memorial landscapes with public-history questions.
Research and archives
Historical documents, Amo’s surviving writings, photographs and scholarship support the project’s different accounts.
Shared interpretation
Community initiatives, researchers, artists and activists contribute distinct forms of knowledge and memory work.
Multiple entry points
German- and English-language materials can be explored at relevant sites or remotely, without a single prescribed route.
Unfinished histories
Gaps, differing interpretations and the politics of representation remain visible instead of being resolved into one final narrative.
04 / Experience the project
Walk. Listen. Explore.
The original audiowalk and digital archive are available on the creators’ public website. Open the work to explore the audio stations, maps and materials in their intended setting.
About access: This exhibition page introduces the research and links to the independently hosted project. It does not copy or play interview audio, artwork or music, because republication rights for those media have not been established for this webpage.
05 / Sources & further reading
Sources & Credits
The contributor’s submission describes a research base spanning historical university records, Amo’s writings, scholarship, oral histories, site documentation, contemporary interviews and the knowledge of local memory initiatives. The following resources offer verified public starting points.
- Anton Wilhelm Amo Heritage Audio Archive — public projectOriginal audiowalk, materials and project access
antonwilhelmamoerbschaft.de ↗ - Andrea-Vicky Amankwaa-Birago (2026), Anton Wilhelm Amo Heritage Audio ArchiveContributor-authored project profile and credits, walk · listen · create
Read the published project profile ↗ - Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg — Anton Wilhelm Amo Heritage Audio Archive / Amo Talks & WalksResearch background, sites, collaborators and project dates
Read the university project description ↗ - Andrea-Vicky Amankwaa-Birago, “Mapping Amo, Hearing Place: The Anton Wilhelm Amo Heritage Audio Archive as Black Cartography and Locative Sound Art.”Bibliographic reference and DOI as supplied in the contributor’s submission; publication details should be confirmed with the author.
DOI supplied by contributor ↗ - George E. Lewis, Amo (2021)Related contemporary musical work commissioned by La Biennale di Venezia. Listed for context only; no recording, score or performance is reproduced here.
Composer and publisher information ↗ - Project initiation, conception, research and directionAndrea-Vicky Amankwaa-Birago
- Producing organisationAnton Wilhelm Amo Heritage Society e.V.
- Digital design and technical production3xPlus / 3plusx (as credited by the project's published sources)
- Collaborative knowledgeCommunity researchers, scholars, artists, memory initiatives and interview partners across several countries. Individual contributor credits remain with the original project.
- Attribution and funding distinctionAttribution: This is a curated introduction to an independently developed project presented in the Who Owns Memory? Digital Exhibition. The archive’s own institutional partnerships and funding are separate from the EVZ-supported Who Owns Memory? programme. Visit the creators’ website for full and current credits.