Ghana freedom2019
Ghana Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia
by Felicia Abban
"Titled Ghana Freedom, after the song composed by E.T. Mensah on the eve of the birth of the new nation in 1957, the pavilion curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim examines the legacies and trajectories of that freedom by six artists, across three generations, rooted both in Ghana and its Diasporas: through archives of objects in large-scale installations by El Anatsui and Ibrahim Mahama; representation and portraiture, both in the studio work of Ghana's first known female photographer Felicia Abban and imagined by painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye; the relativities of loss and restitution in a three- channel film by John Akomfrah; and, lastly, in a film sculpture by Selasi Awusi Sosu. The elliptically shaped design of the pavilion by Sir David Adjaye explores the intersection of ideas linking the...