This fall on the third floor gallery of the Museum of Modern Art hangs a photograph of the Bolgatanga Regional Library in Ghana, a modernist structure designed in the 1960s by American architect J Max Bond.  The photograph, by Willis E. Bell, is part of MoMA’s “Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa” exhibition, which examines modern architecture of the 1950s through 1980s in newly founded West African countries as a way for nations to redefine themselves in contrast to colonial rule.  

The inclusion of Willis Bell’s photograph was made possible by Mmofra Foundation, a fiscally sponsored project of FJC.  Among other projects that enrich the cultural and intellectual lives of children in Ghana, the Mmofra Foundation houses the Willis Bell Archive.  The archive captures the work of renowned photographer Willis Bell, who spent two decades in Ghana following the country’s national independence in 1957, photographing political and cultural events, portraiture, landscapes, everyday life and architectural projects. He worked closely with Efua T. Sutherland, a pioneering cultural activist, head of Ghana’s National Commission on Children and founder of Mmofra Foundation.

Shortly after Sutherland founded Mmofra Foundation, Bell gifted his life’s work of over 40,000 negatives and prints to the foundation. For the next twenty-five years, the Mmofra Foundation, now led by Sutherland’s daughters, Esi Sutherland-Addy and Amowi Sutherland-Phillips, led a major conservation and digitizing project of the collection. Through fiscal sponsorship at FJC, Mmofra Foundation has been able to work with US-based donors to fundraise for the initiative, and partner witha number of institutional collaborators worldwide. The Mmofra Foundation finally opened the Willis Bell Archive to the public in Accra in 2025.

“The dynamic and passionate young Willis Bell Archive conservation team is typical of Mmofra Foundation’s advocacy style across its projects in arts & culture, play, urban space for children and heritage stewardship,” says Amowi Sutherland-Phillips, International Representative of Mmofra Foundation

The MOMA isn’t the only museum to feature work from the archive this summer. At the Ghana! Dreaming Independence exhibition at the 2026 Rencontres d’Arles Photo Festival, in Arles, France, the focus is on the role of photography and publishing as Ghana sought to define its collective identity in the postcolonial era. Sutherland and Bell’s  1960 photo essay, Playtime in Africa, is included in the exhibit.

In both exhibitions, the work of Sutherland and Bell, and the archival accomplishments of the Mmofra Foundation highlight the dynamic cultural and intellectual identities that were being redefined in Ghana in the era.

The Willis Bell Archive can be publicly accessed online here, and information on the Arles exhibition can be found here. To donate to support the Mmofra Foundation through FJC, please find their donation page here, or reach out to program administrator Sophia Trombold, trombold@fjc.org to transfer funds directly from your FJC account to MMofra Foundation.

Special thanks to FJC Program Administrator Sophia Trombold for writing this story.