Bonwire Kente Museum

The Bonwire Kente Museum is a museum and craft centre in Bonwire, the historic centre of Kente weaving in the Ejisu Municipality of Ghana's Ashanti Region. It sits about 18 km from Kumasi on the Kumasi-Mampong road, on the Effiduasi-Ejisu Road. The museum was commissioned on 10 January 2024 by Second Lady Samira Bawumia; Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia cut the sod in October 2020. The ceremony was attended by Ashanti Regional Minister Simon Osei Mensah, Deputy Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture Mark Okraku Mantey, and Bonwire Chief Nana Bobie Ansah II.

The facility is described as an initiative of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, taking two years to complete, and as part of the Ghana Tourism Authority's product-development work and the Ministry's craft villages' circuit under the Ghana Tourism Development project. It is co-located with the Bonwire Kente Village, and a governing board oversees it.

Inside, the building includes a reception area, office space, an exhibition centre, a showroom, a video room and washroom facilities. Exhibits cover the history, evolution and cultural significance of Kente cloth, including rare and discontinued cloths and painted Kente wall designs. Visitors can watch master weavers working on traditional looms and try hands-on weaving.

Kente weaving at Bonwire is traditionally traced to the 17th century, when, by legend, weavers learned the craft from a spider's web and presented the cloth to the Asantehene. That story gives the museum's subject a long local lineage, even though the building itself is new.

Practical details are only partly documented. Fees published by Explore Kumasi — GHC 10 for Ghanaian adults, GHC 5 for Ghanaian children, GHC 30 for non-Ghanaian adults and GHC 15 for non-Ghanaian children — have not been confirmed by an official Ghana Tourism Authority source, so treat them as indicative. A phone number listed on the Visit Ghana Bonwire Kente page, 0244378599, is not confirmed as a museum-specific line. Opening hours are not established in the available evidence. Around the village, shops sell kente and crafts, home-stay accommodation exists, and meals are available on order, with liquid refreshments in the village.