What Our Fathers Knew: The Wisdom of the Ages and the Wisdom of today
Art has always been a means through which societies preserve, question, and transmit knowledge. In What Our Fathers Knew, Samuela Ogbemudia — known artistically as Psalmuela — explores this enduring relationship between art, heritage, spirituality, and knowledge.
Her work invites us to reconsider the wisdom embedded in the traditions, symbols, stories, and visual languages of earlier generations. Rather than positioning ancient knowledge in opposition to modern progress, she encourages a dialogue between the insights of the past and contemporary developments in science, technology, and artificial intelligence.
This approach is especially significant in an era where rapid technological advancement can cause societies to overlook the knowledge systems that shaped earlier civilizations. Through her artistic practice, Psalmuela demonstrates that the past need not be discarded; it can serve as a foundation upon which new ideas and possibilities are built.
What Our Fathers Knew is therefore more than an artistic theme. It is an invitation to look backward with understanding, forward with imagination, and to recognize that meaningful innovation emerges when the wisdom of the ages meets the possibilities of today.
By Prof. Benjamin Kwablah Asinyo (KNUST)
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)