INTRODUCTION
How are we looking at our pasts to better understand our present moment to influence our futures? In a not-so-abstract way, we see our heritage as a key to unlocking a more informed future. This way, we activate our heritage as a pathway to new perspectives of self and form vital solutions to unlearning false narratives of who we are.
By tapping into our heritage, we are collectively offering ourselves an opportunity to redirect our gaze to look within and build new pools of knowledge curated by us through us.
This knowledge bears witness to stories that came before and continues to live through us. In this present intersection of mixed realities, We Are Still Here reflects on what it means to be custodians of heritage. What kind of world emerges when people tap into a new era of creation outside of “validated systems?”
We Are Still Here provides cues and tools for self-excavation already embedded within different communities across the globe – Tools that turn us into anthropological archeologists who need not go far to excavate the value stored within. It’s an acknowledgment that our bodies of knowledge serve as sites of memory that hold heritage.
By tapping into our heritage, we are collectively offering ourselves an opportunity to redirect our gaze to look within and build new pools of knowledge curated by us through us.
This knowledge bears witness to stories that came before and continues to live through us. In this present intersection of mixed realities, We Are Still Here reflects on what it means to be custodians of heritage. What kind of world emerges when people tap into a new era of creation outside of “validated systems?”
We Are Still Here provides cues and tools for self-excavation already embedded within different communities across the globe – Tools that turn us into anthropological archeologists who need not go far to excavate the value stored within. It’s an acknowledgment that our bodies of knowledge serve as sites of memory that hold heritage.
™KWAKU OPOKU
History of self, culture & longing for self-understanding are some main driving factors for Kwaku Opoku’s work. Through countless conversations and interactions with nature and his immediate surroundings, he often curates and creates a slew of experiments that help get him close to this longing for self-understanding.
In the last 12 years of his life, Kwaku had battled a neurological condition that further pushed him to confront identity in his work. This particular experience developed a deep investigative mindset. Traces of this way of thinking can be seen in how he fragments and dissects portraits in pieces like ScreeNkrumah and in films he’s worked on like Free Dome. This same deep investigative approach is very evident in all work Kwaku creates.
He is constantly in conversation with nature to find answers and solutions to almost any problem. In collaboration with Small Hype, he has spent the last three years engaging with a deteriorating wetland in his hometown, Tema. The goal here is to replant and rebuild the wetland’s biological character. This project, dubbed We Have Decided, has developed many projects like Trash-ID. Trash-ID explores the harmful effects and overpopulation of black polythene bags in his hometown.
In the last 12 years of his life, Kwaku had battled a neurological condition that further pushed him to confront identity in his work. This particular experience developed a deep investigative mindset. Traces of this way of thinking can be seen in how he fragments and dissects portraits in pieces like ScreeNkrumah and in films he’s worked on like Free Dome. This same deep investigative approach is very evident in all work Kwaku creates.
He is constantly in conversation with nature to find answers and solutions to almost any problem. In collaboration with Small Hype, he has spent the last three years engaging with a deteriorating wetland in his hometown, Tema. The goal here is to replant and rebuild the wetland’s biological character. This project, dubbed We Have Decided, has developed many projects like Trash-ID. Trash-ID explores the harmful effects and overpopulation of black polythene bags in his hometown.
