Ghana / 2001 / 6mins / Video Art, Experimental / English

In Afatsiawo has crafted a haunting meditation in which fleeting images and somber music evoke loss and displacement. Everyday street scenes is Ghana are juxtaposed with symbolic gestures: hands turning the pages of an English dictionary, fingers tracing characters on a beach, the ritualistic sweeping of sand. Within this fragmented montage of reflection, the artist is seen in a series of striking still poses.

Mawuli Afatsiawo

Mawuli Afatsiawo was born in 1974 in Accra, Ghana. After attending school in London, he returned to Ghana in 1986, graduating with a BA in painting from the College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University, Kumasi, in 1999. Afatsiawo’s interest in media began with a workshop in 1999 given by Marcel Odenbach, at the College of Art, Kumasi. He participated in the exhibition Blick-Wechsel: African Video Art, Berlin, 2001, and was artist in residence at IFA Galleries in Bonn, Germany, 2000. Afatsiawo has shown work in several exhibitions in Ghana, as well as the Hanover Expo, 2000; the Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, 2002; the Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany, 2003–04; and the African Film Festival, EAI, New York, 2003. In 2005 he was artist-in-residence at the Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK, where he initiated new works based on the economic exchange between Ghana and the world. Afatsiawo is creative director for Documenta AV Ltd, a communications design and production agency based in Accra, Ghana. Learn More