The vibrant streets and galleries of Accra are alive with creativity as Accra Cultural Week 2025 officially kicks off today, marking the ninth edition of this prestigious event organized by Gallery 1957. Running from October 30th to November 3rd, the week invites art enthusiasts, collectors, and cultural aficionados from across the globe to immerse themselves in a dynamic program of exhibitions, performances, conversations, and interactive experiences. This year’s lineup highlights new works by four trailblazing artists—Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, Denyse Gawu-Mensah, Reginald Sylvester II, and Serge Attukwei Clottey—whose practices delve deeply into themes of identity, community, transformation, and resilience amid urban and global shifts.
Founded in 2016, Gallery 1957 has established itself as a pivotal force in promoting Ghanaian and African contemporary art, fostering dialogues across the Global South and beyond. Accra Cultural Week continues this mission by positioning Accra as a must-visit destination on the international art calendar, bridging local traditions with global narratives. This edition introduces several exciting firsts, including the inaugural solo exhibition in the gallery’s expansive 1,400 sqm Unlimited Gallery space, underscoring the event’s growth and ambition.
Serge Attukwei Clottey: [Dis]Appearing Rituals: An Open Lab of Now for Tomorrow
A highlight of the week is the major solo exhibition by Serge Attukwei Clottey, titled [Dis]Appearing Rituals: An Open Lab of Now for Tomorrow, opening with a reception at 7pm on Saturday, November 1st, on the Third Floor of the Galleria Mall in Accra. Co-curated by Ato Annan and Allotey Bruce-Konuah, this immersive show marks Clottey’s triumphant return to Gallery 1957 nearly a decade after his debut solo exhibition, My Mother’s Wardrobe, which inaugurated the gallery in 2016.
Born in 1985 in Accra, Ghana, where he still lives and works alongside time spent in Los Angeles, Clottey is renowned for his multidisciplinary practice that interrogates migration, identity, environmental issues, and the symbolic life of everyday objects. He often repurposes found materials, particularly the iconic yellow plastic jerry cans—known locally as “Kufuor gallons”—that were once used for cooking oil but later became vessels for water during Ghana’s shortages. These materials form the backbone of his installations, sculptures, and performances, transforming waste into powerful commentaries on consumption, colonialism, and cultural endurance. Clottey’s work has been exhibited internationally, including notable performances like The Yellow Brick Road and installations that address global water crises and ocean pollution.
In this new exhibition, Clottey reimagines Jamestown—the historic coastal neighborhood in Accra that has long inspired his practice—as a living archive of resilience and contradiction. Amid the pressures of urban transformation, including gentrification and environmental degradation, the artist explores how home, memory, and identity persist. The vast Unlimited Gallery is converted into an “open lab” of experimentation, blending sculpture, installation, painting, photography, performance, sound, and even scent to create a multisensory experience.
At the heart of the show are questions of rebuilding: materially, spiritually, and collectively. Clottey portrays resilience not merely as survival but as a ritualistic act of creation—cutting, stitching, and layering materials to mirror Jamestown’s improvisational spirit.
- Key works include Sea Never Dries (2025), a variable-dimension installation of plastics, wires, and oil paint that evokes the endless ebb and flow of the ocean, symbolizing eternal renewal amid scarcity.
- Another standout is Peter Annan (2025), incorporating plastic, nails, oil, wood, and wires in a variable form that pays homage to personal and communal histories.
- Klotɛ – II (2025), also made from plastics, wires, and oil paint, continues Clottey’s exploration of fragmentation and reassembly, inviting viewers to reflect on disappearance and reemergence.
By framing Jamestown as a site of living knowledge rather than decay, Clottey crafts a narrative of endurance through the city’s textures—its salty sea air, rhythmic sounds, and collective pulse. The exhibition proposes a new language for resilience, asserting that from loss springs new forms of life, art, and meaning. Contact angelica@gallery1957.com for previews or inquiries.
Denyse Gawu-Mensah: LIGHTYEARS OF US
Kicking off the week is LIGHTYEARS OF US, the inaugural solo exhibition by Ghanaian artist Denyse Gawu-Mensah, opening at 7pm on Thursday, October 30th, at Gallery I. Curated by Angelica Litta Modignani, this show celebrates Gawu-Mensah as the winner of the 2024 Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize, an annual award dedicated to supporting and amplifying the voices of Ghanaian women artists.
Denyse Gawu-Mensah, also known as “Scorpio Eyes,” is a 25-year-old mixed-media artist based in Ghana, known for her adventurous spirit and deep dives into design, shapes, color, and form. Her practice is rooted in nostalgia and storytelling, often drawing from Ghanaian identity spanning the 1960s to the 1990s. Gawu-Mensah employs image transfer techniques on textiles, reworking family archives and vintage photographs into layered compositions that speak to continuity, change, and the fragility of memory. Her work has been featured in group shows like Constellations Part 1: Figures on Earth & Beyond at Gallery 1957 in London, where she explored celestial and earthly themes.
In LIGHTYEARS OF US, Gawu-Mensah transforms digital collages of 1960s and 1970s family photographs into tactile textiles, examining what endures or fades across generations. The title poetically references photography’s core element—light—and the vast distances of time it bridges. The exhibition is divided into two parts:
- The first recreates intimate domestic interiors typical of Ghanaian homes, reflecting the artist’s personal ties to family and heritage.
- The second reconstructs 1960s photo studios, honoring pioneers like Samuel Fosso, Jean Depara, Sanlé Sory, and Ghana’s own James Barnor. This section revives the optimism, creativity, and liberation of Africa’s post-independence era through fashion, style, and cultural renaissance.
Featured works include:
- 70s love (2025), an image transfer on cotton duck canvas and organza fabric with acrylic glaze, measuring 160 x 110 cm, capturing tender moments of affection and era-specific aesthetics.
- SSR 1001 (2025), a 100 x 100 cm piece using image transfer on cotton duck canvas with acrylic glaze, further delves into personal archives, blending faded memories with vibrant reconstructions.
Through these pieces, Gawu-Mensah invites viewers to contemplate the textures of time—worn yet enduring. Contact angelica@gallery1957.com for previews.
Reginald Sylvester II: On The Other Side of Languish
Adding an international dimension is On The Other Side of Languish, a major solo exhibition by New York-based artist Reginald Sylvester II, presented in partnership with Gallery 1957 at the Limbo Museum. The show opens at 1pm on Friday, October 31st, curated by Diallo Simon-Ponte.
Born in 1987 in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and currently living and working in Hudson, New York, Sylvester updates mid-20th-century Abstract Expressionism with socially conscious themes, exploring race, sexuality, religion, and spirituality through frenetic mark-making and industrial materials. His works often transform rubber, tarps, aluminum, and steel into meditations on migration, labor, and transcendence, drawing from Afrofuturistic lenses to challenge oppressive structures. Recent exhibitions include T-1000 at Roberts Projects and Cuts at Maximillian William, showcasing his evolving abstraction.
Created during a six-week residency in Accra, this exhibition features nineteen sculptures and seven paintings that expand abstraction into spatial realms. Central to the show is the recurring “gate” motif—bent aluminum forms coated in rubber and acrylic—symbolizing thresholds between the physical and spiritual, historical and imagined. These structures, varying in orientation and scale, are installed across the Limbo Museum’s unfinished architecture, encouraging viewers to navigate them as portals of rupture and reflection.
Drawing on research into Ghana’s colonial-era rubber plantations in the Western Region, Sylvester infuses the works with memories of extraction and endurance.
- Tana (2025), a 48 x 48 inch piece of rubber and acrylic over aluminum, exemplifies this, evoking industrial histories while gesturing toward renewal.
- Ode to Odundo (2025), similarly sized and incorporating rubber, acrylic, and studio debris over aluminum, pays tribute to ceramicist Magdalene Odundo while layering diaspora narratives.
The “gate” form resonates with diagrams of transatlantic slave ships, transforming histories of displacement into rhythms of return. Ultimately, the exhibition meditates on passage, using form to navigate languish toward liberation. Contact angelica@gallery1957.com for previews.
Featuring New Works by Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe and Additional Programming
While the spotlight shines on these solo exhibitions, Accra Cultural Week also features new works by Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, a Ghanaian-born artist now based in Portland, Oregon. Born in 1988 in Accra, Quaicoe studied at Ghanatta College of Art and Design and is celebrated for his vibrant figurative portraits that empower Black subjects against monochromatic backgrounds, exploring themes of identity, social mores, and fashion. His works often draw from friends, family, and cultural icons, including series on Black cowboys and rodeo traditions. Though not tied to a dedicated solo show this year, Quaicoe’s contributions add to the week’s exploration of transformation, appearing in select venues and discussions.
Beyond the exhibitions, the week serves as a forum for dialogue with artist talks, panel discussions, and guided studio visits providing insights into Ghana’s evolving art landscape. The program culminates on November 3rd with the announcement of the fifth Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize. Launched in 2021 by Gallery 1957, this pioneering award—the first dedicated to female Ghanaian artists—offers cash prizes (up to GH₵50,000), residencies, and exhibitions. Past winners include Maame Araba Baboa Opoku (2021), Priscilla Kennedy (2023), and Denyse Gawu-Mensah (2024), highlighting emerging talents and reaffirming the gallery’s commitment to gender equity in the arts.
Accra Cultural Week 2025 not only showcases artistic innovation but also reinforces Gallery 1957’s role in fostering exchange and creativity, solidifying Accra’s status as a global art hub. For more details, visit gallery1957.com or contact the gallery directly.
