Artist Serge Attukwei Clottey joins EMPIRE LINES live at the Eden Project in Cornwall, to discuss Afrogallonism, uplifting communities with upcycled plastic waste, and how the traditional Ghanaian harvest festival of Homowo challenges colonial hierarchies of gender.
Accra-based artist Serge Attukwei Clottey works across installation, performance, photography, painting, and sculpture, exploring personal and political narratives rooted in histories of trade and migration. He refers to his practice with yellow plastic, Kufuor-era, cooking oil cans as ‘Afrogallonism’, using found and recycled materials to create a dialogue with the city’s cultural history and identity, whilst exploring the meanings that are invested in everyday objects, and how they circulate in local and global economies.
Referencing Ghana’s historic wealth, a region known as the Gold Coast during British colonial rule during 19th and 20th century, Serge’s installations like Follow the Yellow Brick Road (2015-2020) also serve a practical function, in creating wealth and employment for the local community. On display alongside his existing work at the Eden Project is a new audio piece, a remembrance of famine that once befell pre-colonial Ghana, and is once again impacting farmers as a consequence of climate change.
Serge talks about his family’s migration from city of Jamestown/Usshertown, in British Accra, to La (Labadi), on the coast, and how water has long infiltrated his practice. We discuss the realities of resource extraction and consumption captured by his work, connecting with the likes of Romauld Hazoumè, El Anatsui, Zina Saro-Wiwa, and Wura-Natasha Ogunji.
Serge shares his interest in political performance art, and collaborating with young people. We open My Mother’s Wardrobe (2015-2016), in which Serge invited men to wear women’s clothes and make-up to perform everyday and ritual tasks, disrupting conventions of gender and sexuality imposed upon and appropriated by many African countries during colonial rule. And Serge talks about his commissions across the world, from Desert X, to Kew Gardens, and the National Portrait Gallery in London, where his Windrush Portrait of Mr. Laceta Reid proudly stands.
This episode was recorded live at Reclaim - a weekend of talks and events at the Eden Project in Cornwall, curated to support mental and planetary wellbeing - in January 2024: edenproject.com/visit/whats-on/reclaim
Acts of Gathering runs at the Eden Project in Cornwall until 14 April 2024. For more, hear curators Misha Curson and Hannah Hooks in the episode on Learning from Artemisia, Uriel Orlow and Orchestre Jeunes Étoiles des Astres (2019-2020): pod.link/1533637675/episode/0e8ab778b4ce1ad24bc15df3fec5a386
For more about African masks and performance, listen to Osei Bonsu, curator of A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern in London: pod.link/1533637675/episode/386dbf4fcb2704a632270e0471be8410
About Ashanti Hare, and the south-west arts ecology, hear curator Ashish Ghadiali on Radical Ecology’s recent exhibition at KARST in Plymouth: pod.link/1533637675/episode/146d4463adf0990219f1bf0480b816d3
For more ‘African’ textiles, hear Dr. Chris Spring on Thabo, Thabiso and Blackx, Araminta de Clermont (2010): pod.link/1533637675/episode/a32298611ba95c955aba254a4ef996dd
And on sea/water as a historical archive, listen to these episodes on:
John Akomfrah’s Arcadia (2023), at The Box in Plymouth: pod.link/1533637675/episode/31cdf80a5d524e4f369140ef3283a6cd
Julianknxx’s Chorus in Rememory of Flight (2023), at the Barbican in London: pod.link/1533637675/episode/1792f53fa27b8e2ece289b53dd62b2b7
WITH: Dr. Serge Attukwei Clottey, Accra-based visual artist.
PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.
Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast
And Twitter: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936
Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines
Melted into the Sun, Saodat Ismailova (2024) (EMPIRE LINES x Fondazione In Between Art Film, Venice Biennale)
Decolonised Structures (Queen Victoria), Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (2022-2023) (EMPIRE LINES x The Serpentine Galleries, Venice Biennale)
Dreams Have No Titles, Zineb Sedira (2022-Now) (EMPIRE LINES x Whitechapel Gallery, Goodman Gallery, Venice Biennale)
Giolo’s Lament, Pio Abad (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Ashmolean Museum)
Camera Obscura, Pia Arke (1990) (EMPIRE LINES x John Hansard Gallery, KW Institute for Contemporary Art)
Medium and Memory, Griselda Pollock (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x HackelBury Fine Art)
Lost Threads, Lubaina Himid (2021, 2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Holburne Museum, British Textile Biennale)
The Black Atlantic, Paul Gilroy (1993-Now) (EMPIRE LINES Live, with Radical Ecology)
Habitat, Taloi Havini (2017) (EMPIRE LINES x Artes Mundi 10, National Museum of Wales, Chapter)
Freud: El Mago de los Sueños (The Wizard of Dreams), Vidas Ilustres Comic Book (1963)
The Madras College of Arts and Crafts, India (1850-Now) (EMPIRE LINES x The Noble Sage, Brunei Gallery)
Queer Feet, Osman Yousefzada (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Charleston)
Learning from Artemisia, Uriel Orlow and Orchestre Jeunes Étoiles des Astres (2019-2020) (EMPIRE LINES x Eden Project)
White Zombie, Victor Halperin (1932) (EMPIRE LINES x Visions of Haiti, Barbican Cinema)
The Black Triangle, Armet Francis (1969) (EMPIRE LINES x Autograph)
Whites Can Dance Too, Kalaf Epalanga, translated by Daniel Hahn (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Kizomba Design Museum, Africa Writes 2023)
Where Worlds Meet, Maha Ahmed (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Leighton House)
Arcadia, John Akomfrah (2023) (EMPIRE LINES at 100 x The Box, Sharjah Biennial 15)
Africa Series, Carrie Mae Weems (1993) (EMPIRE LINES x Kunstmuseum Basel)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Just Dumb Enough Podcast
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL