By John Owoo
(In Accra – Ghana)
A group exhibition titled “Constellations 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space” that enquires the notion of human interconnectedness and our place in trying to de-centre ourselves, is underway at Gallery 1957 in Accra.
Co-curated by Nuna Adisenu-Doe, Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson and Katherine Finerty, the artists engage elements of African mythology to re-imagine worlds beyond the human – indeed, the rational, authentic, comprehensible and terrestrial.
A sequel to “Constellations 1: Figures on Earth and Beyond”, the artists, singularly and collectively unite and seperate relations through an assemblage of machines, plants, religious / mythical objects, memorabilia and all forms of objects that connect and disconnect us.
Furthermore, they present the open possibilities of a multispecies world where our being as humans is very much based on co-existence. However, one that does not automatically imply harmonious and peaceful relations, but rather a dialectical balance with the paradox of existential crisis.
Participating artists inlude Clifford Bright Abu, Abdul-Salam Alhassan, Akosua Odeibea Amoah-Yeboah, Dela Anyah, Dzidzor Azaglo, Elolo Bosoka, Jasper Dafeamekpor, Rosemary Esinam Damalie, Victor Ehikhamenor, Samuel Baah Kortey, Rebekka Macht, Afrane Makof and Putin Ofori.
Others are Frederick Ebenezer Okai, Na Chainkua Reindorf, Ghizlane Sahli, Nyahan Tachie-Menson, Jonathan Okoronkwo, Lois Selasie Arde-Acquah, Phoebe Boswell, Adelaide Damoah, Denyse Gawu-Mensah, Henry Hussey, Sarah Meyohas and Lisa C. Soto.
Through a spectacle of Earth and Heaven, Okai’s large scale installation of earthenware represents spiritual gateways in Ghanaian traditions. An apostle of ancestral wisdom, he often embarks on extensive journeys while delving into Ghanaian traditional repositories of knowledge.
Another earthen-toned portal opens within the space, which is the classic portico of ancient Ashanti architecture by Clifford Bright Abu. The artist reconstructs these structures into digital avatars of extinct architectural histories in contemporary surrealist landscapes.
German artist Rebekka Macht, whose work relates to issues around gender and human connection,links us to the primal arrangement of the bond between a mother and child, which has historically grown as an archetype in theistic religions across the globe.
It meritoriously weaves into the Catholic rosaries of Nigerian-American Victor Ehikhamenor, whose tapestries figuratively reconstruct the traditional authority figures of the Benin Kingdom. This, he achieves with cheap massified rosaries, which subtly comment on the complexity of colonisation, capitalism and religion.
Inspired by personal experiences and the exploration of West African folklore / religious cosmologies, paintings by Na Chainkua Reindorf on display touch on the contextual relation between women and textiles alongside encompassing African oral traditions.
Photographs by Elolo Bosoka, whose work engage with notions of art as a place, economic exchange, materiality and history, usurp us into being gazed by the unassuming presence of redundant objects in their spontaneous material compositions of colour.
Afrane Makof’s practice, which explore the idea of augmentation and extensions between technological gadgets and humans, presents us with the burden of being bionic men and women. He keeps company with machines that estrange us or question our being as humans while confronting us with a reality in which we may digitally enslave ourselves to Artificial Intelligence.
Undeniably, Constellations 2 distinctly re-examines the way we understand the place of humans in the world while challenging us into re-thinking ecology without essentialist narratives of ‘nature’.
The exhibition ends on Thursday October 10, 2024.
