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After in excess of fifty issues exploring the international Black diaspora, this represents a last dispatch. The journey proved incredibly fulfilling, with sincere thanks offered to all the engaged audience.

Exploring the Accra Festival

Visiting the showcases, presentations and shows of the festival, one sees how superior art feeds and builds a country’s history and character. The highlight was certainly the artist's stunning [Dis]Appearing Rituals: An Open Lab of Now for Tomorrow, which put his groundbreaking afrogallonism in full view: a concept that reimagines plastic containers into mesmerizing creations, tapestries of yellow, brass and gold. The exhibition was designed as a testament to the strength of Jamestown, a historic neighbourhood of Accra.

The community – mainly inhabited by the Ga ethnic group, a seafaring people – is also where a great number of formerly enslaved people came back from Brazil and settled in the 1830s. Called the Tabom community, they carried with them Portuguese tongue and culture.

In every part of Jamestown, visitors encounter a fusion of building designs. There’s Fort Vicentia, boasting its unique Portuguese brickwork and arched doorways. Also present is the prominent Jamestown Lighthouse, constructed in the 1800s and later given its recognizable banded facade.

A Culture of Remembrance

Also striking about Jamestown is the ever-present presence of funeral posters. Everywhere you turn, be it plastered over alleyways or on big signboards, you’ll see service information and phrases of mourning. In Jamestown, as throughout Ghana, memorial services are significant communal events.

In the artist's breathtaking installation, every aspect of the visual and auditory essence of Jamestown are captured – particularly in the enveloping Jamestown nshonaa piece. Within it, you’re soothed by the recording of ocean surf with beach material on the floor, while shelters, nets and depictions of vessels celebrate its dynamic, multigenerational fishing community. Yet being present in this exhibition space, one cannot help but think of the mountains of textile waste that threaten the aesthetics and tranquillity of the area.

In Addition to the Headline Act

The festival program included additional highlights. Housed in an incomplete building at the local university, creator Sylvester presented a deeply moving minimalist collection, an incredibly moving, austere exhibition that displayed sculptures and paintings made in partnership with metalworkers.

Also featured was the competition for female artists for women artists of Ghanaian origin. It showcased the first solo show of a recent winner, whose work references familial archival records to craft a visual impression of life in Ghana after independence. The event also honored a current champion, whose varied work is deeply invested in the weaving practices of women in the Volta region.

A Lasting Impact

While the global African community has grown been attracted home to the region in the western winter, an increasing number are contemplating journeying some months earlier to immerse themselves in the area's cultural season. Between Accra Cultural Week and similar gatherings, what you’ll find are cultural ecosystems that are not simply new or “rising” but have established an entire landscape that is permanent.

In the end, the journey provides a vision of Accra that resembles a declaration for conservation and the preservation of culture. It is a resonant homage to perseverance in all its manifestations.