AKWAABA - GHANA@50 EXHIBITION

19 januari – 28 februari 2008
Information Center Stadsdeel Zuidoost
Anton de Komplein 150, Amsterdam Zuidoost
Mon-Fri 08.30 - 15.30
Viewing of the film See you Amsterdam on Thursday 24 January 19.00-21.00

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“Ghana, our beloved country, is forever free.” With these words from its then president Kwame Nkruma, on March 6, 1957, the independence of Ghana became a fact. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Ghana's independence the Southeast District Council and the City of Amsterdam have organised an exhibition. In it the story of Ghana and its population, and the links between Ghana and The Netherlands, is told using photographs, film and visual art.

Many Ghanaians (about 7000, by the estimate of the Central Bureau for Statistics) live in Amsterdam Southeast (the Bijlmermeer), and form a close-knit community there. They maintain close ties with family in their homeland and are often active in one or more of the eighty Ghanaian organisations in the area. Amsterdam and Accra, the capital of Ghana, are sister cities. A documentary by Evelien Veenhuizen about this cooperation, entitled Old Accra on the Sea, is being screened during the exhibition.

The exhibition shows works by contemporary Ghanaian artists: installations by Kofi Setordji (b. 1957) in which he reflects on the political and economic reality in Africa, and the ceramic sculptures of Kofi Asante (b. 1943), which are inseparably linked with the icon of Ghana, the akuaba, the fertility symbol of ideal feminine beauty.

The photographer Marieken Verheyen (b. 1954) wanted to record everyday life in Ghana without lapsing into the cliché images of exotic and unspoilt places or poverty, hunger and war.

Commissioned by the Vista and Sankofa Foundations, story-telling competitions were organised in three villages in Ghana. The winners received the title Anansi Masters. Their stories are part of a living tradition, and – illustrated by figurative painters – they are to be seen and heard in the exhibition.

In the past The Netherlands was also guilty of participation in the slave trade, a dark page in its history. Traces of the Dutch involvement in slavery are still to be found in Ghana. The photographer Hans van Rhoon and the text writer Jeroen Junte report on them in Lasting Memories.

Akwaaba: Ghana, 50 Years! Exhibition on Ghana and its population and the links between Ghana and The Netherlands