Home Is Here, Too
(Pieces from the Accra x Columbus Artists’ Residency)
Curated by Edmund Gaise and Rebecca Ibel, all work courtesy of Contemporary Art Matters
Featuring:
Amina Toure-K | Jepthah Bentsil-Kobiah | Solomon Adu Theresa Ankomah | Daniel Tetteh Nartey
Making art in an emerging economy like Ghana comes with its unique challenges. Historically, costs of materials are high, conservative political ideologies can be restrictive, and limited access to the global market, create tough headwinds for Ghanaian artists. However, to the Ghanaian creative community, a challenge is nothing but a potential opportunity. Their challenges fuel their creativity, their ingenuity and their aspirations.
The five artists featured in Home is Here, Too (pieces from the Accra x Columbus Artists’ Residency) at Columbus College Art and Design’s Beeler gallery, create responses to the unique hurdles they often face on their path. To pursue their talents and flourish their practices the cohort often have to travel to new cities, new countries, and new continents drastically different from their homes. These new worlds present new opportunities, overwhelmingly these artists are embraced into welcoming communities, and sometimes not so welcoming communities. Strange environments or not, these Ghanaian artists are skillful at adapting to their studio life and their new dwellings. They embrace their new surroundings, but they will make accommodations for their preferred customs. While creative influences, and preferred customs are disparate among this cohort, still core commonalities exist between them. There are three guarantees when a Ghanaian artist inhabits a new dwelling; Art will be created, prayers will be had, and on schedule fufu and light soup will be eaten!
While Columbus and Accra hold a tie as Sister Cities, our respective nations continue to grow in their relationship as well. Movement between the United States and Ghana in its success, has fostered a shared cultural experience and stimulated each economy. However, a substantial lacuna remains. Through the labor of art, the cultural conduit between them strengthens. The Columbus community aids and abets this concretization, housing this exhibition and declaring itself a home for the artists who aspire to find it here. The cohort of artists found their way to the residency individually, but through fellowship and community they are all friends. Some relationships are closer than others, but there is a collective safety net amongst them.