Akutia: Blindfolding the Sun and the Poetics of Peace (A Retrospective of Agyeman Ossei, ‘Dota’)
Co-curated by Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh, Adwoa Amoah, and Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson
Press Release
Akutia: Blindfolding the Sun and the Poetics of Peace is a retrospective exhibition which traces the lifework of dynamic Ghanaian artist, dramatist, and educator Agyeman Ossei (Dota) to its earliest days in the 1980s. Remaining true to the artist’s irreverent attitude to art, the exhibition amplifies the dialogic relations between the linguistic, structural, and formal elements operative in Ossei’s work— inspired by Asante proverbial culture and philosophy, folk/Highlife music, and poetry translated via collage, drama, literature, painting, sculpture, video, and new media. As an artist whose aesthetic and cultural sensibilities have been shaped as much by formal education as by the “farmers and so called bums” he encountered during the inspired “Koforidua years” in the early 1990s, Ossei experimentally weaves a secular linkage between the traditional, modernist and extra-modernist elements evidenced in his practice.
This landmark exhibition marks twenty-seven years since the artist’s preceding solo exhibition and will run between Savanna Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA) Tamale and its sister institution, Red Clay, located in neighboring Janna Kpeŋŋ in the Northern Region of Ghana. To complement the main exhibitions, a rich lineup of live and virtual events encompassing other areas of the artist’s interests, ranging from musical concerts, theater, workshops, film screenings, and many more, will be programmed throughout the year. These events are designed to adhere to the requisite COVID-19 guidelines provided by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, and the Government of Ghana. There will also be a radio play, translated into Dagbani, which will circulate on airwaves, podcasts, and digital listening stations in Ghana and around the world.
The exhibition acknowledges the kind support of the Center for National Culture in Tamale, blaxTARLINES KUMASI, Foundation for Contemporary Art – Ghana, and Exit Frame Collective.
SCCA Tamale is an artist-run institution that functions as project space, exhibition and research hub, cultural repository and artists’ residency. It is the initiative of world-renowned Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama as a contribution to the development and expansion of infrastructure for contemporary art in Ghana. Since its opening in 2019 the institution has dedicated its programming to unravelling modernist and contemporary histories in Ghanaian art beginning with its twentieth century progenitors. Akutia: Blindfolding the Sun and the Poetics of Peace is the sophomore exhibition in this regard. Affiliated to blaxTARLINES KUMASI, SCCA works to produce and share knowledge through exhibitions, workshops, publications and allied activities.
Agyeman Ossei (Dota) bio:
Agyeman Ossei (b. 1960) is an artist and senior lecturer who has provided administrative and academic leadership as head of the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Ghana, Legon from 2014 until his voluntary retirement in 2017. He was the artistic director of Abibigromma— resident theater group at the University of Ghana, Legon— from 2005-2009 and served as acting Executive Director of the National Theater of Ghana between 2012 and 2014. He is the founder of EvenSolomon Ethnic Homes, a building society and co-operative which proposes earthy housing solutions to the urban and rural poor. He is the Artistic Director of Ɔpɛnemaa Productions— a media production house involved in the creation of content related to performing arts, radio plays, animations, and many more.
Ossei has directed and produced concerts with legendary ‘Palm wine’ Highlife musician Agya Koo Nimo and the National Symphony Orchestra as well as skits and jingles for radio in local Ghanaian languages such as Twi, Dagbani, Frafra, Ewe and Wala. Ossei has contributed to numerous academic journals and publications worldwide and has translated and adapted literary works into theatre plays— notable among them Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born, Osiris Rising and The Healers. He has also directed the play Ananse and the Gum Man by Joe De-Graft se- lected for the Ghana @50 Theater Classics at the National Theater (2007). His two solo exhibitions ‘Reviewed Traditions in Ghanaian Painting’ and ‘Proverbs: An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures’ respectively happened in 1989 and 1993 in Accra. In 2017 he participated in the large scale group exhibition Orderly Disorderly, organised by blaxTARLINES KUMASI at the Museum of Science and Technology in Accra, Ghana.
Click to read curatorial statement, watch videos.
For more information contact: t: (+233) 037-209-6210 | m: (+233) 0202654324
w: http://www.sccatamale.org | e: sccatamale@gmail.com | IG & FB: @sccatamale, @redclay_studio
SCCA opening reception: Friday, 4th September, 2020@ 17:30hrs
Opening hours: Monday – Thursday, 11 am – 8 pm,
Friday – closed
Saturday – Sunday, 11am – 6 pm
Closing date: Thursday, 7th March, 2021
Red Clay opening: Saturday, 5th September, 2020 @ 17: 30hrs
Opening hours: Monday – Thursday, 11 am – 8 pm,
Friday – closed
Saturday – Sunday, 11am – 6 pm
Closing date: Thursday, 7th March, 2021
Venues:
1. SCCA, SSNIT Junction, adjacent St. John of the Cross School, Tamale.
2. Red Clay, Janna Kpenŋ (Giana on Google Map, on the Nanton Road).
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