🔗 Share this article

After more than 50 editions delving into the international Black diaspora, this marks a last dispatch. The experience was deeply rewarding, and immense thanks offered to every one of the attentive audience.

Exploring Accra Cultural Week

Attending the showcases, artworks and shows of this event, observers witness how exceptional art nourishes and builds a country’s history and identity. The highlight was without doubt Clottey's stunning [Dis]Appearing Rituals: An Open Lab of Now for Tomorrow, which displayed his groundbreaking afrogallonism on full display: a philosophy that converts water vessels into mesmerizing art pieces, mosaics of golden hues. The exhibition was created as a homage to the resilience of this area, a venerable quarter of Accra.

This area – mainly home to the Ga community, a community of fishermen – is also where numerous formerly enslaved people returned from South America and established themselves in the 1830s. Called the Tabom, they brought Brazilian tongue and culture.

Throughout Jamestown, one observes a mix of building designs. There’s Franklin House, boasting its unique colonial-era masonry and curved entrances. Another landmark is the famous Jamestown Lighthouse, erected in the 1871 and later sporting its signature red-and-white-striped exterior.

Customs of Celebration

Equally striking about Jamestown is the ubiquitous sight of obituary announcements. On every corner, be it plastered over walls or on big signboards, there are announcements and phrases of mourning. In Jamestown, similar to the rest of Ghana, funerals are major communal events.

In the artist's impressive show, all of the visual and auditory essence of Jamestown are captured – notably in the enveloping Jamestown nshonaa piece. Within it, you’re soothed by the sound of ocean surf with sand at your feet, while shacks, hanging fishing nets and representations of vessels honour its dynamic, generational maritime community. Yet being present in this venue, one cannot help but think of the heaps of discarded clothing that compromise the aesthetics and serenity of the shoreline.

Beyond the Headline Act

There is a great deal more. Within an incomplete building at the local university, artist Reginald Sylvester II exhibited On the Other Side of Languish, an incredibly moving, austere show that displayed sculptures and artworks produced in collaboration with metalworkers.

And then there is the competition for female artists for Ghanaian women creators. It featured the inaugural exhibition of a prior laureate, whose work references familial archival records to produce a depiction of life in post-independence Ghana. The event also crowned a latest champion, whose multidisciplinary work is particularly focused on the textile traditions of women in a specific region.

A Permanent Presence

Although the diaspora has increasingly been drawn home to west Africa in the western winter, a growing cohort are considering journeying for the cultural season to experience the region’s cultural season. From Accra Cultural Week and other major events, what emerges are art scenes that are not simply emerging or “rising” but have established an entire landscape that is permanent.

In the end, the visit leaves one with a perception of Accra that feels like a manifesto for ecological stewardship and the safeguarding of culture. It is a compelling homage to resilience in all its expressions.