A Walk-through Intimacy

Theresah Ankomah is an artist who lives and works in Accra, Ghana. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art and a Master of Fine Art Degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi-Ghana. In 2017, she won the first runner up prize of the Kuenyehia Prize for Contemporary Art.
Ankomah’s artistic practice is expressed through performative installation. She has been working with kenaf woven baskets, strings, ropes, raffia, and royal palm leaves as her principal material to explore the intricacies of ‘weaving’ through complexities of art historical ‘craft’ as well as trade, geopolitics, gender, and capitalism.

Under the partially raised reenforced concrete storey building structure of the Nubuke Foundation gallery, the artist hangs folded onion baskets like chandeliers. The contrast of shadows cast by the different refractive effect of colour light bulbs and the dyed onion basket add to the perception of the work. The basket retains carrier plastic bags that are used as personal identifiers in the market. When transporting the onion, traders tie the bags to the baskets for them to recognise their goods. But here is the paradox. Ankomah, to elevate her materials from craft, uses the element of functionality or the decorative to the point of art.