SCCA Tamale to host landmark exhibition
Curated by Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh, Adjoa Amoah and Naa Koshie Thompson, the exhibition is set to amplify the discourse between the linguistic, structural and formal elements in Dr Ossei’s work, which are largely inspired by Asante culture, philosophy and folk / highlife music.
Other aspects of the exhibition are poetry translated by way of collage, drama, literature, painting, sculpture, video and new media. His works generally celebrate elements such as cultural classics and literature cleverly memorialised through carving, modelling, painting and theatre.
Indeed, as an artist whose aesthetic and cultural sensibilities have been shaped by formal education as well as “farmers and so-called bums” he encountered during the early 1990s, Dr Ossei experimentally weaves a secular linkage between the traditional and modernist components in his practice.
Titled “Akutia: Blindfolding the Sun and the Poetics of Peace”, this ground-breaking exhibition marks 27 years since the artist’s previous solo exhibition and will run between SCCA and its sister institution, Red Clay Studios, which is located at Janna Kpenn, also in the Northern Region.
Other activities lined up to complement the main exhibitions include live and virtual events encompassing other areas of the artist’s interests. These range from musical concerts, theatre performances, workshops and film screenings.
Popularly known as Dota, Dr Ossei was the artistic director of Abibigromma, a resident theatre group at the University of Ghana from 2005 to 2009 and served as acting Executive Director of the National Theatre of Ghana between 2012 and 2014.
He 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.
Dr Ossei has contributed to numerous academic journals and publications worldwide and has translated and adapted literary works into theatre plays. Notable among them are Ayi Kwei Armah’s “The Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born”, “Osiris Rising” and “The Healers”.
SCCA is an artist-run institution that functions as a project / exhibition space, research hub, cultural repository and artist’s residency. It is the initiative of the internationally acclaimed Ghanaian artist, Ibrahim Mahama, as a contribution to the development and expansion of infrastructure for contemporary art in Ghana.
The exhibition ends on March 7, 2021.