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After in excess of 50 issues delving into the worldwide Black diaspora, this represents a last piece. The tenure proved deeply gratifying, with great gratitude directed to all the dedicated audience.

Inside the Accra Festival

Visiting the exhibitions, presentations and performances of this event, observers witness how the finest art sustains and shapes a country’s heritage and character. The centrepiece was certainly the artist's stunning [Dis]Appearing Rituals: An Open Lab of Now for Tomorrow, which put his innovative afrogallonism in full view: a concept that reimagines yellow jerrycans into illusory creations, tapestries of metallic tones. The display was created as a tribute to the endurance of this area, a historic quarter of Accra.

This area – largely inhabited by the Ga community, a seafaring people – is furthermore where numerous returning Africans came back from Brazil and made their home in the 1830s. Called the Tabom people, they brought Brazilian tongue and culture.

In every part of Jamestown, you can see a fusion of architecture. There’s Fort Vicentia, boasting its characteristic colonial-era masonry and curved entrances. Another landmark is the prominent beacon, built in the 1800s and subsequently featuring its recognizable red-and-white-striped appearance.

Customs of Mourning

Equally remarkable about Jamestown is the ever-present presence of memorial notices. Wherever you look, whether plastered over walls or on larger hoardings, there are funeral details and expressions of mourning. In Jamestown, mirroring customs in Ghana, final rites are large-scale community celebrations.

In Clottey’s spectacular installation, the entirety of the sights, sounds and religious textures of Jamestown are evoked – particularly in the enveloping Jamestown nshonaa piece. Within it, one is relaxed by the recording of ocean surf with sand underfoot, while shacks, nets and depictions of vessels celebrate its spirited, long-standing maritime community. Yet standing in this exhibition space, the mind turns to the heaps of cast-off garments that compromise the aesthetics and serenity of the region.

Apart from the Main Event

The festival program included additional highlights. Housed in an incomplete building at the University of Ghana, artist Reginald Sylvester II presented On the Other Side of Languish, an emotionally powerful, austere presentation that displayed three-dimensional works and canvases created in partnership with welders.

Also featured was the prestigious art award for female Ghanaian artists. It showcased the debut presentation of a recent winner, whose work utilizes familial archival records to produce a artistic representation of life in Ghana after independence. The event also announced a current winner, whose diverse work is particularly focused on the weaving practices of women in the Volta region.

A Lasting Presence

Although the diaspora has more and more been attracted back to Ghana in the winter months, a growing cohort are considering journeying for the cultural season to experience the region’s festival period. Between this festival and other major events, what emerges are art scenes that are not merely nascent or “upcoming” but have built up an whole landscape that is enduring.

In the end, the experience offers a vision of Accra that feels like a statement for ecological stewardship and the safeguarding of heritage. It is a resonant testament to resilience in all its expressions.