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In the wake of more than fifty installments exploring the worldwide Black diaspora, this represents a concluding piece. The tenure was profoundly fulfilling, and great gratitude offered to every one of the engaged audience.

Exploring Accra Cultural Week

Visiting the showcases, artworks and performances of the festival, it becomes clear how the finest art feeds and shapes a country’s history and identity. The focal point was certainly Clottey's remarkable [Dis]Appearing Rituals: An Open Lab of Now for Tomorrow, which showcased his innovative afrogallonism on full display: a concept that transforms yellow jerrycans into captivating works of art, assemblages of yellow, brass and gold. The display was created as a testament to the endurance of Jamestown, a historic quarter of Accra.

Jamestown – predominantly inhabited by the Ga people, a community of fishermen – is furthermore where numerous formerly enslaved people arrived from South America and settled in the 19th century. Known as the Tabom people, they brought Brazilian tongue and culture.

All across Jamestown, visitors encounter a fusion of architecture. You'll find Franklin House, boasting its unique Portuguese construction and curved entrances. Also present is the iconic Jamestown Lighthouse, built in the 1800s and subsequently featuring its recognizable banded exterior.

Customs of Celebration

Equally notable about Jamestown is the ubiquitous sight of memorial notices. Everywhere you turn, whether affixed to walls or on larger billboards, one finds funeral details and expressions of farewell. In Jamestown, mirroring customs in Ghana, final rites are significant community celebrations.

In Clottey’s impressive show, the entirety of the sensory and spiritual landscape of Jamestown are captured – notably in the enveloping Jamestown nshonaa work. In this space, you’re soothed by the recording of crashing waves with granules on the floor, while shacks, draped nets and representations of boats celebrate its vibrant, generational maritime community. But being present in this gallery, the mind turns to the piles of textile waste that compromise the beauty and serenity of the shoreline.

In Addition to the Centrepiece

The festival program included a great deal more. Inside an raw space at the University of Ghana, creator Reginald Sylvester II presented On the Other Side of Languish, an incredibly moving, minimalist exhibition that featured three-dimensional works and paintings made in partnership with artisans.

Another key element is the Yaa Asantewaa Art prize for female Ghanaian artists. It featured the first solo show of a recent recipient, whose work references familial archival records to craft a depiction of life in Ghana after independence. The event also announced a new champion, whose multidisciplinary work is intensely concerned with the weaving practices of women in a specific region.

A Permanent Impact

Although the global African community has more and more been attracted home to Ghana in the western winter, an increasing number are contemplating travelling some months earlier to engage with the region’s cultural season. From Accra Cultural Week and similar gatherings, what is evident are cultural ecosystems that are not merely emerging or “rising” but have forged an whole world that is here to stay.

Finally, the visit leaves one with a image of Accra that serves as a manifesto for environmental protection and the preservation of culture. It is a powerful homage to perseverance in all its forms.