Akutia: Aretrospective of Agyeman Ossei ‘Dota’

Agyeman ‘Dota’ Ossei

Agyeman ‘Dota’ Ossei (b. 1960) is an artist and senior lecturer who has provided administrative and academic leadership as head of the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Ghana, Legon from 2014 until his voluntary retirement in 2017.

He was the artistic director of Abibigromma— resident theater group at the University of Ghana, Legon— from 2005-2009, and served as acting Executive Director of the National Theater of Ghana between 2012 and 2014.

He has directed and produced concerts with legendary ‘Palm wine’ Highlife musician Agya Koo Nimo and the National Symphony Orchestra as well as skits and jingles for radio in local Ghanaian languages such as Twi, Dagbani, Frara, Ewe and Wala.

Ossei has contributed to numerous academic journals and publications worldwide and has translated and adapted literary works into theatre plays— notable among them Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born, Osiris Rising and The Healers.

He has also directed the play Ananse and the Gum Man by Joe De-Graft selected for the Ghana @50 Theater Classics at the National Theater (2007). His two solo exhibitions ‘Reviewed Traditions in Ghanaian Painting’ and ‘Proverbs: An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures’ respectively happened in 1989 and 1993 in Accra.

In 2017 he participated in the large scale group exhibition Orderly Disorderly organized by blaxTARLINES KUMASI at the Museum of Science and Technology in Accra, Ghana.

“It then becomes crucial that if we are to use our artistic training to reflect collective community aspirations, then our artistic messages must be decently obscured; ‘The knowledge of the kingdom is revealed to you but to others they come by means of parables’.

So as artists, you are the acknowledged eye and conscience of society and it is important to communicate wisely so that your counsel or criticism is taken in good faith and not considered offensive. In this respect, the subsequent interactive discourse between my work, my mother, and I, however metaphysical are very revealing. One day when she came I had painted ‘Aboa bi beka wo a, efiri wo ntoma mu’ and after relating the title to her she chuckled at the image of the mother breastfeeding a child.

I am sure the import of the message had not totally hit home as there was an ambiguity in the sarcasm of who was doing the biting. Given that it was the child whose mouth was at the flesh of the mother, it was possible that if any biting had to be done, it would most likely come from the child but by the next day there was no ambivalence in intent. ‘Akokɔ baatan nan tia ba, enkum ba’ hung directly opposite the doorway where she stood.

“How many children are there?” she asked. But that did not receive a response from me and once she had counted them herself and figured that they tallied with her number of children, the communication was complete.

She said; “Yoo”, shut the door and that was the last of her early morning visits. I guess for us in the humanities, such is the nature of the ‘Knot’ we must untie or undo. The attitudes and the dogmas that accompany university education probably enslave us rather than liberate us.”

— Agyeman Ossei. Excerpted from Art and Autobiography: A Personal Narrative and National Identity. Colloquium Faculty of Painting and Sculpture Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology April 6, 2005. Kumasi.

Akutia: Blindfolding the Sun and the Poetics of Peace is a retrospective exhibition which traces the lifework of dynamic Ghanaian artist, dramatist, and educator Agyeman Ossei (Dota) to its earliest days in the 1980s.

Co-curated by Adwoa Amoah, Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh and Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson

This landmark exhibition marks twenty-seven years since the artist’s preceding solo exhibition and will run between Savanna Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA) Tamale and its sister institution, Red Clay, located in neighboring Janna Kpeŋŋ in the Northern Region of Ghana.

To complement the main exhibitions, a rich lineup of live and virtual events encompassing other areas of the artist’s interests, ranging from musical concerts, theater, workshops, film screenings, and many more, will be programmed throughout the year.

These events are designed to adhere to the requisite COVID-19 guidelines provided by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, and the Government of Ghana.

There will also be a radio play, translated into Dagbani, which will circulate on airwaves, podcasts, and digital listening stations in Ghana and around the world.

SCCA opening reception: Friday, 4th September, 2020 @ 17:30hrs
Opening hours: Monday – Thursday, 11 am – 8 pm,
Friday – closed
Saturday – Sunday, 11am – 6 pm
Closing date: Thursday, 7th March, 2021

Red Clay opening: Saturday, 5th September, 2020 @ 17: 30hrs
Opening hours: Monday – Thursday, 11 am – 8 pm,
Friday – closed
Saturday – Sunday, 11am – 6 pm
Closing date: Thursday, 7th March, 2021

Venues:
1. SCCA, SSNIT Junction, adjacent St. John of the Cross School, Tamale.

2. Red Clay, Janna Kpenŋ (Giana on Google Map, on the Nanton Road).

For more information on the exhibition visit Find Link in our Bio; https://sccatamale.org/blindfoldingthesunandthepoeticsofpeace/

For more information contact:
(+233) 037-209-6210
(+233) 0202654324
sccatamale@gmail.com
IG & FB: @sccatamale@redclay_studio

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