Ghana 2022

Title: Black Star – The Museum as Freedom
Commissioner: Akwasi Agyeman, CEO, Ghana Tourism Authority Ministry of Tourism, Arts And Culture
Curator: Nana Oforiatta Ayim
Exhibitor: Na Chainkua Reindorf, Diego Araúja, Afroscope

For the 59th Biennale di Venezia, Ghana presents the exhibition “Black Star – The Museum as Freedom“, featuring artists  Na Chainkua Reindorf, Afroscope and Diego Araúja. The title stands for the black star from Ghana flag, but also represent Africa’s connection with its diasporas through Marcus Garvey’s “Black Star Line” and his Back-to-Africa movement revived now in Ghana; as well as for Pan-Africanism and anti-colonialism with the symbol described as the “Lodestar of African Freedom”.

The Ghana pavilion, with the contribution of architect DK Osseo-Asare, explores the concept of this freedom across time and borders. The exhibition is based on curator Nana Oforiatta Ayim’s concept of the “Mobile Museum”, which travels into communities across Ghana in co-curation and exchange, with the aim of creating accessible, contextual, inclusive spaces.

Na Chainkua Reindorf creates her own mythology of Mawu Nyonu, a fictional secret society made of seven women. Afroscope explore the concept on “oneness” – being one – with “Ashe”, a work based on a spirit that runs through all the elements using technology as a translator of the flow of life. Diego Araúja presents “A Congress of Salt“, in which the Atlantic Ocean, that served to separate those taken from the shores of West Africa to its diasporas, now acts as a unifier, the birthplace of a new creole.