Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space, a group exhibition at Gallery 1957 in Accra, features 25 artists who examine the human role in the complex nexus of existence and beyond through expansive multimedia and multi-sensorial experiences. Co-curated by Nuna Adisenu-Doe, Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson and Katherine Finerty, the show is on view from August 1 - October 10, 2024. Accra follows after London in this research, experimentation and knowledge-sharing series, Constellations.

At the entrance of the gallery, the hanging heaps all over the escalator lobby that welcome visitors are Lois Selasie Arde-Aquah’s surgically shaped black synthetic leather tapestries, reaching out like remarkable overgrowths of dark mosses. Like Arde-Aquah’s work, Abdul-Salam Alhassan’s abstract sculptural configurations are derived from labour-intensive processes, where combustion causes the recomposition of plastic mats collected from religious and domestic spaces.

Dela Anyah’s Boitumelo (2023) is a tapestry of interwoven bicycle tubes and car number plates, with a bike rim holding the shoulders of the piece together like an abstracted Batakari Kese (paramount smock). Jonathan Okoronkwo adds decommissioned motor oil and liquefied steel on plywood to discuss the humanity against machinery maze. It is a reminder of Adisenu-Doe’s vision, where the curator envisages the “re-echoing [of] ideas of the position of humans…to challenge us to move beyond the constraints of human-centred thinking”.

Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space at Gallery 1957 gathers an enthusiastic blend of voices, employing immersive site-specific multimedia installations, poised to continue the conversation initiated in Part 1 which was shown in London.

Still on the topic of living matter and the industrial bubble, Afrane Makof’s installation consists of a desktop computer, a scanner, a copier, a printer, an LCD monitor, a CRT monitor, a speaker, a fan, an AM/FM receiver, an audio amplifier and an in-car video player. In the same tech-fluent vein, Sarah Meyohas’ analogue and archival holograms investigate the phenomenology of sensory perception.

On subjects of visual connections to religion and engaging the norm, Akosua Odeibea Amoah-Yeboah and Victor Ehikhamenor’s works take centre stage. Amoah-Yeboah’s collages wield computerised flaws to depict out-of-body experiences by subverting image normalisation. Not a bed of roses, but rosaries – Ehikhamenor’s compositions exude the timeless fortitude of traditional authority figures of the Benin Kingdom.

The roles of feminine spirits and local masquerades in West African Vodun culture and aesthetic traditions of textiles are referenced in Na Chainkua Reindorf’s work with a magnetic gaze channelled around fictional female characters or glanu (skins). Rebekka Macht, a Gallery 1957 resident, has on display a triptych of oil on canvas, signifying bodies glued together with the intimacy of an embrace between purples and browns of motherly abundance. A visual commentary on femininity, hair and domestic space politics by Rosemary Esinam Damalie makes use of towels and hair extensions while projecting traditional techniques in hair braiding.

Jasper Dafeamekpor and Adelaide Damoah reflect on the Akan visual philosophy of Adinkra’s role in contemporary life, through textiles and photographic fusions respectively. Denyse Gawu-Mensah revisits Ghanaian familial traditions of the 1900s and constructs rustic digital collages onto fabric with a touch of text and brass in a few frames. Nyahan Tachie-Menson merges tie and dye textiles, fibre and video while referencing Pipilotti Rist’s Selbstlos im Lavabad (Selfless in the Bath of Lava), 1994, in a speculative composition spanning across the biological essence of the womb and human revulsion amidst extant deterioration.

With experimentation in mark-making and abstraction within figuration and a sound collage, Phoebe Boswell invites us to churn inspiration from Hermann Hesse’s writing on the subject of trees and the “ungovernability of nature”. Plant life aesthetics are also fuel for Ghizlane Sahli and Lisa C Soto’s works, as seen in their three-dimensional embroidery melding historical and cartographic narratives. Henry Hussey’s collaged antique naval flag work factors in the historic practice of Benin bronze art.  

Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson, speaking with STIR, said that she seeks to “explore folktales and science fiction, alter and mixed realities that could challenge our relationship with the world.” Ananse the spider trickster from traditional Akan folklore is inundated with flora and birds on Putin Ofori’s canvases. Another tradition-meets-fantasy representation is Frederick Ebenezer Okai’s installation of earthenware sculptures, animated with hanging or fallen clouds from the skies back to earth. Also with earth as a medium, Clifford Bright Abu proposes built environment ideas through Ashanti architectural spatial reimagination. In Painterly Objects by Prince Claus Building Beyond fellow Elolo Bosoka, the artist poetically pores over architectonics tapped from historically connected communities.

Samuel Baah Kortey’s tapestries reference Pan-African ceremonial fabrics to highlight the campaign for Ghana’s independence, where women who played a major role have been forgotten or silenced from the archives. The three-piece work Na Mama Do Am flows from the walls anchored by historic motifs in wood with symbolic West African combs.

Furthermore, Katherine Finerty’s curatorial approach explores the idea of “imagining spaces for boundary-breaking critical exchange and inclusive, immersive participation”. In tune with Finerty’s concept, Dzidzor Azaglo’s soundscape creates a wondrous ambience, as played from two speakers where a melodic collage of poetic narratives, chirping birds and an extensive chorus of layered humming precede the eerie resonance of a ticking clock.

Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space at Gallery 1957 gathers an enthusiastic blend of voices, employing immersive site-specific multimedia installations, poised to continue the conversation initiated in Part 1, which was shown in London. From traditional to experimental and even non-conformist ideas, the multifaceted experience displayed by the curator-artist mash-up aims to shape the narrative informed by research, enabling us as humans to contemplate that we might not be the centre of all things after all.