JAMESTOWN ARbotage
ARbotage in Jamestown, Accra, 2019
Jamestown is one of the oldest districts of Accra. Its intricate structure of organic micro-architecture is said to have served as a strategic escape mechanism during the era of the slave trade. Today it is a vibrant place, rich in historical texture and story. Jamestown has been fertile ground for Ghanaian boxing legends, and it becomes a cultural metropolis during the Homowo celebrations of the Ga-Adangbe people and the renowned Chale Wote Street Art Festival.
For this intervention, I created a "time-travel machine" that brought historical figures together with idols of the present and speculative characters of the future — highlighting the role of storytelling and of heroes in shaping a positive future. The work used Web-AR technology, so that anyone could look through the "magic glass" using an ordinary smartphone. More than one hundred thousand people walked along Prof. Atta Mills High Street and encountered the exhibition, which featured eight-metre-high banners mounted on the walls of Ussher Fort.
The Fort was chosen deliberately: the installation staged a hybrid ceremony of digital and analogue performance, intended to address the effects of the captivity and violence held within its walls for centuries. After its use during the slave trade, the fort was later transformed into a prison — a history that called for a stage on which to confront and begin to heal such human suffering.
