Collage and Contemporary Ghanaian Iconography: an Exhibition Project
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Date
2008
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Abstract
This project is an artistic engagement with the complex co-ordinates of Ghanaian modernity. I use collage, a hybrid format of early Modernist painting, as the medium and visual metaphor for the liminal Ghanaian modernity. The canonical proverbs, incantations, maxims, folktales, myths and songs of the Avatime area in the Volta Region are the sources of Ghanaian iconography interpreted in collage. Notably, Avatime identity is an appropriate social analogue of the collage medium; it is overdetermined, especially in its complex overlaps with Ewe identity. It is these overlaps and interstices of Ghanaian modernity that interest me. I developed a catalogue of iconographic symbols and textual transcriptions from the Avatime-Ewe oral canon. Based on the catalogue of symbols I developed a corpus of twenty four collages crafted from waste products of the Ghanaian textile and clothing industries. In my collages, the heavy industry meets the artisanal, the aboriginal meets the modern, the ethnographic order complicates fine art autonomy and vice versa. I showcased the framed collages in an exhibition which drew critical responses from the audience. Through print and electronic mediums, I hope to expand the format for the project's dissemination and its conversation with existing collage practice.
Description
A Project Report submitted to the Department of Painting and Sculpture,
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology,In partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Art