Africans Column is honored to host an exclusive interview with Ghanaian-American interdisciplinary artist Rita Mawuena Benissan about her highly anticipated solo exhibition The Ones Before Her Were Covered in Gold, on view at Gallery 1957, London from 14 October through 18th December 2025. Known for her research-driven, materially rich practice, Benissan works at the intersection of textile design, photography, archival research, and cultural history to reframe how Ghanaian figures and visual legacies are seen and understood. Through her Si Hene foundation, she has actively pursued the preservation and re-inscription of Ghana’s cultural heritage, foregrounding the aesthetics of sovereignty and ceremonial regalia—such as the royal umbrella—as symbols of identity, lineage, and power.
In this landmark London debut, Benissan expands her ongoing project of reclaiming colonial visual archives by reanimating late 19th- and early 20th-century portraits of Ghanaian royals, elites, and anonymous sitters held in European and American collections. Rather than simply recuperating historical imagery, she uses luminous colour, intricate embroidery, scale, and sculptural forms to return presence, dignity, and narrative to figures long held in stasis by the colonial gaze. By repositioning these works within the Victorian architecture of Gallery 1957’s London space, the exhibition reimagines the site as a speculative archive, a palace, and a sanctuary that gestures toward a reversal of imperial narratives and a reclamation of visual authority across continents.
Africans Column had the opportunity to speak with Rita about the ideas, processes, and histories embedded in this remarkable body of work. In the conversation below, she reflects on the symbolic lineage behind the exhibition’s title, the emotional labour of reanimating archival subjects, the tensions and resonances between AI-assisted digital speculation and traditional handcraft with Ghanaian artisans, and the significance of presenting such work in London—an environment deeply entwined with the very histories she interrogates and reimagines. What follows is an intimate and generous exploration of her artistic vision and the future possibilities of African visual sovereignty.
Africans Column: Your journey spans continents and disciplines—from studying Apparel and Textile Design to Photography and African Studies, and now founding the Si Hene foundation. How have these diverse experiences shaped your artistic vision, and why is this moment, leading up to your first London solo show, particularly significant in your evolution?
Rita Mawuena: My journey has always involved weaving threads of memory, identity, and representation through fabric, photography, or archives. Studying Apparel and Textile Design taught me about material language, specifically how texture and form can tell tales. Photography and African Studies increased my understanding, allowing me to examine how pictures, particularly colonial archives, have affected conceptions of African identity.
Creating the Si Hene Foundation was a natural outgrowth of that exploration. It provided me with a platform to not only preserve but also recreate Ghana’s cultural heritage, connecting the past and present via art, research, and community participation.
This London exhibition feels like the conclusion of these intersections. It marks a turning point in my practice, as I move beyond reclaiming and archiving memory to actively re-inscribing Ghanaian history in global places. Presenting this collection of work in London, a city strongly interwoven with the colonial history I frequently question, transforms the process of exhibiting into one of reflection, conversation, and reinvention. It’s more than just an artistic achievement; it’s a reclaiming of story.
Africans Column: Your work consistently explores the aesthetics of sovereignty. What first drew you to Ghanaian chieftaincy and the royal umbrella as a lens through which to investigate African identity, memory, and power?
Rita Mawuena: Growing up in the United States, I consistently sought avenues to reconnect with my Ghanaian heritage—yet to do so from my own perspective. My first true introduction to the world of chieftaincy came from my grandpa, Togbe Fosuhene III, a traditional chief in both the Volta and Ashanti areas. Seeing how his role granted him authority, respect, and responsibility in his society made me think about the nature of power, how it can be inherited, embodied, and symbolically passed over generations.
Thinking about how my grandfather’s position gave him power within his community and family, and how that power, in some ways, was passed down to me, made me wonder what else gives Ghanaians power besides the physical objects and materials we often celebrate, such as kente, stools, or golden regalia.
My work looks at the cultural, historical, and symbolic significance of these national assets. The royal umbrella is central to this investigation, as I turn it from a mere protective object to a powerful emblem of Ghanaian identity and hierarchy. In reinventing the umbrella, I’m not only conserving a traditional symbol of authority, but also exploring how power, memory, and visibility continue to impact our notion of self and sovereignty today.
Africans Column: Your exhibition title, The Ones Before Her Were Covered in Gold, carries profound meaning. Can you share the symbolic lineage behind this phrase and how it relates to themes of restoration, dignity, and visibility in the show?
Rita Mawuena: Ghana was previously known as the Gold Coast, a location known for its tremendous wealth and natural beauty, but whose history was frequently recounted through the prism of extraction and colonial greed. In The Ones Before Her Were Covered in Gold, I sought to reclaim the narrative of gold, not as a sign of possession, but of dignity, visibility, and inheritance.
The title addresses both the land and the people. Ghana, commonly referred to in the feminine, represents a “her,” a nation rich not just in actual gold but also in culture, history, and soul. To suggest the ones before her were covered in gold is to recognize those who came before us, our forefathers, royals, and regular people, whose worth and richness were frequently buried or distorted throughout history.
This display becomes a gesture of repair, bringing those figures back into focus and re-covering them in gold, not as decoration but as recognition of their continuing presence and importance. It is about restoring power to people and storylines that have always been precious, even when history attempted to darken them.
Africans Column: This exhibition transforms archival photographs, often held in European and American institutions, into vibrant, reimagined works. Can you walk us through how you select a figure from these monochrome colonial archives and decide how to reanimate them with color, embroidery, and scale?
Rita Mawuena: For me, choosing a figure is never a technical decision—it’s emotional. I’m drawn to someone when I feel a presence coming through the photograph. It might be their posture, the way they’re holding themselves, the quiet of their gaze. It feels almost like they are calling me to be seen again.
Once I choose them, I begin to imagine their world beyond the limits of the black-and-white frame—the air around them, the weight of their cloth, the color of the ground beneath their feet. Color becomes a way of returning breath to the image. Embroidery slows everything down for me; it’s meditative, intimate, and deeply human. Every stitch feels like an act of care.
Scale is especially important to me. Growing up, I was surrounded by large western monuments, murals, and historical paintings that dominate space and affirm power. I wanted that same monumental embrace for Ghanaian history and heritage. By enlarging these figures, I’m giving them back physical and symbolic space, so they are no longer contained, but commanding, present, and impossible to overlook.
Africans Column: Many of these historical images were captured through what you describe as a “colonial gaze.” How do you define that gaze, and in what ways does your intervention—through color, materiality, or composition—reframe or challenge it?
Rita Mawuena: For me, the colonial gaze is rigid and emotionless. It treats the body as something to be captured, measured, and controlled rather than encountered as a living person. At the time, many photographs required a long exposure to produce a single image, forcing the sitter to remain completely still for an extended period. That technical demand often translated into a physical and emotional tension in the body.
In Seated Among His Own (2025), which references an image from The Met’s collection, you can see this clearly in the subject’s face—the wide, almost strained eyes, the tightness in the posture, the effort of holding still for nearly twenty minutes. That stillness was not natural; it was enforced.
Through color, material, and composition, I work to gently undo that freezing. I return warmth to the skin, depth to the space, and breath to the body. The figure is no longer trapped inside a moment of control—they are allowed to exist again with presence, dignity, and feeling. The image shifts from being something observed to someone encountered.
Africans Column: Your creative process blends AI-assisted digital recolouring with collaboration with Ghanaian artisans, including male embroiderers and umbrella makers. Why is this dialogue between digital and ceremonial practices central to the exhibition, and how do you balance technology, handcraft, and traditional aesthetics in your work?
Rita Mawuena: The starting question for this body of work was simple but powerful: What if these photographs had been taken in color? What might the environment have looked like? What colors might they have been wearing? AI allows me to imagine those possibilities without pretending they are factual. It becomes a speculative tool, not a rewriting of history.
That distinction is very important to me, I am not using AI to change what history is, but to open a conversation about what it could have felt like. Once that digital imagining is complete, the work must return to the hand. The embroiderers and umbrella makers bring the images back into the physical world through ancestral knowledge, touch, and ceremony.
Balancing technology and tradition reflects how I move through the world myself, between digital spaces and inherited practice. The work lives at that intersection, where possibility and memory meet.
Africans Column: Color plays a central role in your pieces. How do the golds, crimsons, ochre, and indigo in your palette convey cultural memory, emotional resonance, and the reclamation of the archival past?
Rita Mawuena: Color, for me, is feeling before it is meaning. Gold reminds me of dignity, ancestry, and what has always been ours—even when history tried to take it away. Crimson carries life, blood, ceremony, and struggle. It holds both celebration and survival. Ochre brings me back to the land—to dust, grounding, and the earth we stand on. Indigo feels spiritual and protective, like a quiet shield.
When I return these colors to the archive, I’m not decorating the past, I’m restoring its emotional frequency. I want the images to feel alive again, to pulse with presence, not sit silently as documents. Color becomes my way of saying: these lives were rich, complex, and full long before the photograph ever touched them.
Africans Column: Works like Man of the Cloth and The Passing of A Kingdom transform anonymized archival subjects into vivid, dignified presences. How do you approach the responsibility of restoring individuality and narrative to figures who cannot speak for themselves?
Rita Mawuena: For me, this responsibility is very heavy and very sacred. I don’t approach these figures as subjects to be studied, I approach them as people. My role is to transport the viewer back into history, not to sit in the pain of what was taken, but to ask a different question: how do we restore what was always there?
I’m less interested in explaining how Ghana’s power was diminished, and more invested in visually returning that power. These photographs are no longer documents of a past moment, they become living presences. These individuals are no longer numbers, no longer anonymous figures in an archive. They are revealed as full beings, with authority, lineage, dignity, and possibility. My work is about making that truth undeniable.
Africans Column: The exhibition space in Gallery 1957 London is framed as a “speculative archive” and a “reversal of imperial narrative.” How did the Victorian architecture influence the presentation of your work, and what do you hope visitors feel as they enter a space re-envisioned as palace, archive, and sanctuary?
Rita Mawuena: When I first saw the gallery’s Victorian architecture, I imagined a different history—one in which colonialism had never disrupted Ghanaian cultural continuity. I wondered: what if this location had always been a repository for Ghanaian memory? What if our stories had always been recognized here?
I wanted guests to go in and experience the reversal, to feel as if they were visiting a Ghanaian home rich in history, caring, and presence. The gallery simultaneously functions as a castle, an archive, and a refuge. It is not intended to feel detached or clinical, but rather warm and inhabited. My intention is that people would feel gripped by the space, encircled by memories, and invited to a new way of seeing history.
Africans Column: The sculptural umbrellas in the exhibition, rendered as still, bronze-like monuments, contrast with the vibrant energy of your embroidered works. What does this shift from movement to stillness communicate about the endurance, presence, and authority of your subjects?
Rita Mawuena: These sculptural umbrellas remind me of the Asantehene’s umbrellas, which stood before the palace immediately before a procession began. Nothing is moving yet, yet the power is already there. Every time I experience that moment, I am struck by how much strength there is in the calm.
In the exhibition, the stillness is purposeful. The umbrellas do not require motion to assert power. Their weight, form, and quiet presence carry as much power as they would in full parade. For me, the transition from activity to silence represents endurance—the idea that sovereignty does not dissolve when the spectacle stops. It remains solid, consistent, and irrefutable.
Africans Column: Having exhibited in Accra and now in London, how do you anticipate the reception of this work might differ between audiences intimately familiar with Ghanaian chieftaincy and those whose understanding is mediated through colonial archives.
Rita Mawuena: I wondered: what if this space had always been ours? What if Ghanaian history had always existed within these walls? I wanted visitors to go in and feel as if they were entering a Ghanaian home, palace, or archive rather than a contemporary exhibition. It became a quiet reversal. In Accra, the exhibition felt like a reunion. It was many people’s first exposure to my universe, my language of umbrellas, archives, and reconstructed chieftaincy. In many ways, it represented the spirit of the title, In the World, Not of the World—an invitation into my palace, my fantasy of sovereignty, and a gentle reminder of how we may deal with our own heritage differently.
London feels extremely different. There, the work becomes more confrontational. It enters a space where much of our understanding of Ghana has been influenced by colonial archives and organizations. So the questions change. Rather than “Do I recognize this?” The question becomes, “Why wasn’t I shown this before?” The same piece holds a mirror in different ways depending on who stands in front of it, and that difference is essential to me.
Africans Column: Looking back on The Ones Before Her Were Covered in Gold and your broader artistic trajectory, what conversations or reflections do you hope the exhibition sparks about Ghanaian history, identity, and the future possibilities of African visual sovereignty?
Rita Mawuena: I hope the exhibition allows everyone, particularly Ghanaians and Africans, to see themselves clearly. To see their histories, symbolism, beauty, and strength clearly mirrored back at them. I hope it sparks a quiet but long-lasting shift—a moment when we start to rethink who has been permitted to be viewed with dignity, who has had the right to envisage the future, and who has visual authority.
For me, this piece of work serves as both a reminder and a declaration: we were always present and golden. And now we see ourselves clearly, on our own terms.
Rita Mawuena Benissan’s exhibition, The Ones Before Her Were Covered in Gold, is far more than an artistic display; it is a meticulously researched act of restorative justice executed through stunning material and conceptual complexity. By moving the visual legacy of Ghanaian sovereignty from the static, controlling frame of the colonial archive and re-inscribing it onto monumental, vibrant textiles created through ancestral craft, Benissan asserts a powerful future for African visual identity. Her work in London transforms a former site of imperial history into a profound space for reflection, challenging viewers to confront the omissions of the past while celebrating the undeniable and enduring presence of African dignity, memory, and authority. The exhibition stands as a golden declaration: that the richness of the past must be seen, and that the power of self-representation belongs, unconditionally, to those who were documented.
