WHO/WHAT IS AFROSCOPE?
NEVER STATIC ALWAYS EVOLVING
NEVER STATIC ALWAYS EVOLVING
1991—
/ STATEMENT /
Afroscope [Nana Isaac Akwasi Opoku] is an artist and designer from Tema, Ghana who makes art that is often rooted in a diversity of Afrikan world views and cosmogonies.
The Yoruba concept of Ashè, the Nguni Bantu philosophy of Ubuntu and the Akan Adinkra symbology are some examples of his early, enduring influences.
His work typically exudes strong surrealist leanings with afrofuturist undertones, as it asks and responds to questions such as:
Who could we become if we remembered who we were?
Where could we go if we remembered where we came from?
What alternate realities and futures could we create if we knew our various pasts?
The genesis of his formal art practice largely coincides with the peak of his disillusionment with colonially programmed norms, particularly within the spheres of education, religion, nutrition society and selfhood.
Thus, art-making has become a way for Nana to investigate and synthesize the alternative modes of being he continues to encounter on his ongoing journey to ‘decolonize imagination’.
In essence, his work currently attempts to deconstruct normative reality and challenge popular tropes about Afrika(ns) by imagining transcendental visual narratives that usually comprise otherworldly beings, speculative dreamscapes and peculiar forms.
Nana straddles the worlds of myth, mystery and automatism in his work. Ultimately he sees his art as portals into a multiverse of realities and also as a form of cosmic play.
The Yoruba concept of Ashè, the Nguni Bantu philosophy of Ubuntu and the Akan Adinkra symbology are some examples of his early, enduring influences.
His work typically exudes strong surrealist leanings with afrofuturist undertones, as it asks and responds to questions such as:
Who could we become if we remembered who we were?
Where could we go if we remembered where we came from?
What alternate realities and futures could we create if we knew our various pasts?
The genesis of his formal art practice largely coincides with the peak of his disillusionment with colonially programmed norms, particularly within the spheres of education, religion, nutrition society and selfhood.
Thus, art-making has become a way for Nana to investigate and synthesize the alternative modes of being he continues to encounter on his ongoing journey to ‘decolonize imagination’.
In essence, his work currently attempts to deconstruct normative reality and challenge popular tropes about Afrika(ns) by imagining transcendental visual narratives that usually comprise otherworldly beings, speculative dreamscapes and peculiar forms.
Nana straddles the worlds of myth, mystery and automatism in his work. Ultimately he sees his art as portals into a multiverse of realities and also as a form of cosmic play.