By John Owoo
(Accra – Ghana)
There is a quiet confidence running through Weight of the Ordinary, the latest group exhibition currently on view at the Nubuke Foundation in Accra.
Rather than seeking spectacle or grand narratives, the exhibition draws attention to the overlooked rhythms of everyday life, revealing how familiar spaces, objects and routines quietly shape memory, identity and social experience.
Featuring five emerging artists—Josiah Tsibu Manu, Priscilla Agbeti, Blanche Boni-Mississo, King David Osabutey (Kakalicka) and Sena Burgundy Appau—the exhibition shows that the ordinary is anything but mundane. Through diverse media, including painting, weaving, sculpture, installation and assemblage, the artists transform everyday experiences into compelling artistic investigations.
The exhibition succeeds by avoiding the romanticization of the commonplace. Instead, it presents the everyday as a dynamic site where histories are preserved, social systems are negotiated, and personal identities continually evolve. The curatorial framework is cohesive, allowing each artist to pursue distinct concerns while contributing to a broader conversation about contemporary life.
Josiah Tsibu Manu offers one of the exhibition’s most poignant contributions, transforming domestic interiors into repositories of collective memory. Family photographs, furniture, and decorative elements become visual archives, suggesting that living rooms often preserve histories absent from official narratives. His work speaks eloquently to the emotional architecture of home.
Equally compelling is Priscilla Agbeti’s engagement with woven textiles. Her intentionally unfinished works reveal the enduring legacies of labor embedded in everyday materials. Rather than presenting weaving as a finished craft, she leaves histories open-ended, inviting viewers to reflect on the persistence of exploitation and inherited systems that continue to shape contemporary society.
Blanche Boni-Mississo extends the conversation into the realm of spatial politics. Her translucent installations subtly reveal how movement, accessibility, and participation are governed by invisible structures. The work invites physical engagement while prompting broader questions about inclusion and exclusion across public and private spaces.
King David Osabutey, known as Kakalicka, introduces a speculative dimension through hybrid figures inspired by Akan cosmology. His recurring stranger, the Ɔhɔhoɔ, serves as a powerful metaphor for displacement and belonging, linking indigenous knowledge to contemporary anxieties about identity and migration.
Meanwhile, Sena Burgundy Appau’s monumental blue figures offer a contemplative conclusion. Suspended between certainty and transformation, they embody the possibilities of human becoming, reminding audiences that extraordinary potential often lies within ordinary existence.
Installed with restraint and clarity, Weight of the Ordinary rewards slow looking. Rather than overwhelming viewers with visual excess, it invites careful reflection on the unnoticed structures that shape everyday life.
In doing so, the exhibition affirms Nubuke Foundation’s ongoing commitment to presenting thoughtful contemporary art that resonates with local realities and universal human experience. It lingers long after one leaves the gallery, demonstrating that the greatest artistic revelations often arise from life’s most familiar moments.
The exhibition ends on Saturday, August 29, 2026.
