How are modernities formed? What are their gestures and external manifestations? What are their dynamics and processes of exchange? The artist Zohra Opoku has turned rhythmical, symmetrical formality of individuals and groups in their finest garments upside down by placing her subjects in second-hand clothing imported from the West, replacing handcrafted methods, such as the kente, batakari, adinkra, and prints from home-grown (and foreign) textiles industries, such as Akosombo Textiles. What impact do these imported textiles have on our particular modernity? What agency is being taken from us? In cultures where cloths carry meaning, how is this meaning usurped by the semantics of imported slogans? What portrait do they, and the found wood the artist has collected and reassembled, begin to form of our city? These questions will be embodied in a procession from Osu Castle, mirroring the ongoing processions, the Gesamtkunstwerke, of the synchronistic Homowo processions, and their more contemporary manifestations in the Chale Wote festival; the ’t-shirt’ carpet those in procession wear, and which will be in situ at ANO, for others to try on, constructed as a reimagining of collective sartorial belonging.
"When We Were Queens and Kings"
Curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim
Exhibition continues until 30 October 2017
Tuesdays - Saturdays 10am-7pm
Curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim
Exhibition continues until 30 October 2017
Tuesdays - Saturdays 10am-7pm