Curatorial Intensive alum and artist Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh will speak about his own practice and the contemporary art scene in Accra, Ghana.
Ohene-Ayeh reflects upon his work in the larger context of Ghana’s art scene, like a brushstroke in a larger picture, "an anamorphic stain in the bigger picture." The relationship between the work and its artistic context is central to the pedagogic model of kąrî’kạchä seid’ou, an influential professor leading the Department of Painting and Sculpture at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Ghana. Through his teaching, kąrî’kạchä seid’ou has consistently encouraged artistic practice to expand into unconventional public spaces and research that challenge the ‘official’ notions of art and exhibition-making.
Ohene-Ayeh will also discuss his ongoing research series Prison Anxieties (2011) that investigates Ghana’s cultural/colonial history through writing, installation and curatorial projects – including his recent work Notion: 06 03 (2015), which re-imagines the use of flags as symbols of nationalistic identification. Appropriating the formal composition and symbolic language of Asafo flags, Ohene-Ayeh critiques the myths and ideologies that underpin Ghanaian nationalism.
This event is free and open to the public. To attend, please RSVP to rsvp@curatorsintl.org with KWASI in the subject line.
