Worldfaze Art Practice proudly unveils its first exhibition of 2025, FLOWER POWER: An Arewa Story from the South, a solo showcase by Ghanaian artist Al Hassan Issah. Running from June 20 to August 15 at the Worldfaze Art Practice gallery on Nii Okan Avenue, Ogbojo, Accra, this exhibition marks a pivotal moment in the gallery’s mission to amplify local artistic voices. Curated by Nuna Adisenu-Doe, the show presents a visually and intellectually arresting exploration of cultural transformation, postcolonial identity, and the evolving aesthetics of the Arewa wedding ceremony, a traditional Hausa ritual now reshaped by global influences and modern spectacle.
A Tapestry of Tradition and Transformation
At the heart of FLOWER POWER lies Al Hassan Issah’s multifaceted inquiry into the Arewa ceremony, a cornerstone of Hausa-Muslim matrimonial tradition originating in Northern Nigeria and widely practiced across West Africa’s Hausa diaspora, including Ghana. Historically, Arewa weddings were intimate, spiritually grounded rituals defined by gendered rites such as Kamu (the symbolic fetching of the bride), Sa-lalle (the henna night), Yinin Biki (the main day of celebration), Zaman Ajo (marital advice for the bride), Budar Baki (the unveiling of the bride’s face), and Sayan Baki (the bride’s first words as a wife). These ceremonies, once modest and community-centered, emphasized spiritual bonds and cultural continuity, with intricate henna patterns, embroidered garments, and equestrian processions serving as symbolic expressions of heritage.
Issah’s work, however, confronts the dramatic evolution of these rituals. Today, Arewa ceremonies often unfold over multiple days in lavish venues, replete with extravagant décor, celebrity appearances, and performative displays that prioritize affluence over tradition. What was once a humble donkey-led procession to the groom’s home has been replaced by curated luxury, often divorced from its original context. Issah does not approach this shift with nostalgia but with a critical lens, interrogating what happens when ritual becomes performance, when symbols are stripped of meaning and rebranded as luxury experiences. His paintings and installations serve as both an archive of this transformation and a protest against the commodification of cultural heritage.
A Visual Language of Disruption
Issah’s practice is a masterful synthesis of painting, sculpture, and architectural ambition, blending materials such as acrylic paint, vegetable oils, charcoal, vinyl wallpaper, gemstone edge trims, steel pipes, auto base paint, and canvas. His centerpiece work, Mariam Koomu (2024), exemplifies this approach. Measuring 183 x 116 x 8 cm, this mixed-media piece combines vibrant acrylics, gold-plated embellishments, and tactile elements like steel and rhinestones to create a “metallurgical poetry” that negotiates softness and strength, fragility and permanence. The work’s floral motifs—crafted from steel petals, aluminum, and lace—evoke the 1960s Flower Power movement, which used flowers and art as tools of peaceful resistance. Here, Issah reimagines the floral symbol as a radical act of cultural reclamation, transforming it into a commentary on beauty, identity, and postcolonial hybridity.
The exhibition’s title, FLOWER POWER: An Arewa Story from the South, draws explicitly from this countercultural metaphor, framing Issah’s use of ornamentation as a subversive act. His canvases bloom with artificial bouquets, where steel transforms into delicate flora and final spikes—architectural symbols of protection—morph into deadly ornaments. This interplay between beauty and danger underscores the tension between tradition and modernity, reverence and reinvention. Issah’s figures, often expressionless yet pulsing with emotion through posture and gesture, are enveloped in a material language of adornment. Female figures dominate his compositions, not merely as brides but as cultural protagonists, challenging gendered assumptions in Islamic art and honoring the centrality of women in Arewa rituals. Their stylized postures, exposed skin, and elaborate fashion negotiate the delicate boundary between religious propriety and secular aesthetics, reflecting the constant reinterpretation of modesty in contemporary visual culture.
Cultural Synthesis and Postcolonial Realities
Issah’s work is deeply rooted in his environment—Kumasi, Ghana’s “Garden City” and home to the country’s largest gold deposits. Gold and florals recur as emblems of regional identity, beauty, and abundance, but they are not mere embellishments. Instead, they serve as vehicles for aesthetic pleasure and cultural expression, free from the class signifiers that dominate modern Arewa ceremonies. His practice merges influences from Baroque, Rococo, Abstract Expressionism, the Arts and Crafts movement, Arabesque, and Victorian decorative arts, creating a visual language that is both historically resonant and distinctly contemporary. Victorian silhouettes, Arabian aesthetics, and Mediterranean opulence converge with traditional Arewa motifs, capturing a hybrid reality shaped by postcolonial inheritance and digital virality.
The artist’s material choices—wallpapers, cast iron, aluminum, wood, and steel pipes—are welded and constructed with the help of local craftsmen, reflecting the communal spirit of his Zango upbringing in Kumasi. These materials, combined with his painterly approach, create constellations of objects and installations that blur the boundaries between drawing, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Each work is a tactile archive, laden with the weight of colonial encounters and postcolonial transformation, where the wedding ceremony becomes an alchemical site for flames, color, and cultural memory.
A Platform for Local Voices
FLOWER POWER is not only a showcase of Issah’s singular vision but also a testament to Worldfaze Art Practice’s commitment to nurturing Ghana’s contemporary art scene. Founded in 2020 by artist Kwesi Botchway, Worldfaze is an artist residency and exhibition space dedicated to supporting young and emerging artists. Located at Nii Okan Avenue GD-063-6238, Ogbojo, Accra, the gallery has hosted four artists in its residency program and organized exhibitions since 2023. This exhibition marks a significant step in Worldfaze’s mission to expand its scope, providing a platform for local artists to engage with global audiences while rooted in their cultural contexts.
About the Artist
Born in 1993, Al Hassan Issah lives and works in Kumasi, Ghana. He holds both a BFA and MFA in Painting & Sculpture from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). His practice is driven by an interest in theatricality, objecthood, and the socio-material cultures of the Zongo communities he grew up in.
His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Documenta 15 in Kassel (Germany), SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, Morton Street Partners in New York, La Condition Publique in France, Nubuke Foundation in Accra, and blaxTARLINES KNUST. Collaborating with local craftsmen, welders, and artisans, Issah’s work interrogates the intersections of art history, Islamic aesthetics, and contemporary visual culture.
About Worldfaze Art Practice
Founded in 2020 by artist Kwesi Botchway, Worldfaze Art Practice is an independent residency and exhibition space in Ogbojo, Accra. The initiative supports young and emerging artists through residency programs, exhibitions, and curatorial support aimed at enriching Ghana’s dynamic art ecosystem.
Since 2023, Worldfaze has hosted multiple artists-in-residence and organized several exhibitions that foreground contemporary voices in African art.
Visiting the Exhibition
FLOWER POWER: An Arewa Story from the South is open to the public from June 20 to August 15, 2025, at Worldfaze Art Practice, Nii Okan Avenue GD-063-6238, Ogbojo, Accra. Gallery hours are available on the Worldfaze website (www.worldfazeartpractice.org), and inquiries can be directed to worldfazeartpractice@gmail.com or +233 (0)543806494. Visitors are invited to immerse themselves in Issah’s vibrant, thought-provoking world, where tradition and transformation collide in a celebration of cultural resilience and reinvention.
This exhibition is a bold meditation on the evolving nature of love, identity, and heritage in a globalized world. Through his alchemical artistry, Al Hassan Issah not only reclaims the Arewa ceremony but also challenges us to reconsider the ways in which culture is shaped, performed, and preserved.
Curatorial text by Nuna Adisenu-Doe
