Diversifying the usages of Asanka Bowls
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Date
2021-06-10
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Abstract
In Ghana pottery basically comprises cooler, akatekyewa, asanka bowls and flower pots.
Traditionally, cooler is used for storing water, akatekyewa for storing medicine and
cooking, asanka bowl for grinding and as an eating bowl, and flower pots for growing
flowers. Research proves that for the past four decades the use of these products have
fallen drastically, resulting to the collapse of most local pottery centers. The fall of their
usages are due to the fact that, technological products have been substituted for pottery
products. For instance refrigerator has replaced cooler, blender and plastic bowls for
asanka bowls, plastic flower vases for flower pots etc. This alarming situation if not
curbed will lead to the loss of our prestigious pottery forms. Therefore, using the asanka
bowl as a case study in the pursuit of addressing this challenge. The research aims at
establishing the possibility of using asanka bowl as an art medium to diversify its
conventional usages. This will serve as alternative choice for local potters, sellers and
users to envision asanka bowls beyond their customary form and uses. Hence breaking
the conventional perception for it. With devised objectives mainly to study the
conventional asanka bowl, design and develop a modified asanka bowl for the production
of wall mural and fountain. The diversification however, is not a means to utterly distort
the asanka bowl beyond recognition since it is a traditional artefact with prestige but it is
a preservative technique that will aid to explore other forms and usages of asanka bowls the contemporary art approach. Inversely, this is an attempt to enlighten our local potters
to explore intensively the possibility of producing beyond conventional purposes of the
other pottery wares and salvage our dying pottery.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Integrated Rural Art and Industry
in the College of Art and Built Environment in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Philosophy (Clay and Earthenware Technology).
Keywords
Pottery, Asanka Bowls, Ghana