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After more than fifty installments navigating the international Black diaspora, this represents a concluding piece. The journey proved profoundly gratifying, with immense thanks offered to all the engaged readers.

Inside the Accra Festival

Attending the displays, installations and acts of Accra Cultural Week, one sees how exceptional art feeds and builds a country’s heritage and essence. The highlight was without doubt Serge Attukwei Clottey’s exquisite [Dis]Appearing Rituals: An Open Lab of Now for Tomorrow, which put his innovative afrogallonism for all to see: a philosophy that reimagines plastic containers into illusory art pieces, assemblages of golden hues. The display was created as a testament to the resilience of this area, a venerable area of Accra.

Jamestown – largely populated by the Ga people, a fishing community – is additionally where many formerly enslaved people returned from South America and settled in the 1830s. Referred to as the Tabom, they brought Portuguese tongue and traditions.

Throughout Jamestown, you can see a mix of building designs. You'll find Fort Vicentia, featuring its characteristic European-style brickwork and door arches. Also present is the famous Jamestown Lighthouse, erected in the 1800s and subsequently given its distinctive striped exterior.

A Culture of Celebration

Also remarkable about Jamestown is the pervasive sight of memorial notices. Everywhere you turn, be it affixed to buildings or on larger signboards, one finds service information and expressions of mourning. In Jamestown, as throughout Ghana, funerals are large-scale communal events.

In the artist's breathtaking exhibition, the entirety of the sights, sounds and religious textures of Jamestown are captured – especially in the enveloping Jamestown nshonaa work. Within it, you’re soothed by the recording of crashing waves with granules at your feet, while shacks, draped nets and representations of boats pay homage to its dynamic, multigenerational seafaring tradition. Yet standing in this gallery, it's hard to ignore the piles of discarded clothing that mar the beauty and tranquillity of the shoreline.

Apart from the Centrepiece

Accra Cultural Week also features a great deal more. Housed in an unfinished structure at the University of Ghana, artist Reginald Sylvester II showcased On the Other Side of Languish, an incredibly moving, minimalist exhibition that featured sculptures and canvases created in concert with metalworkers.

And then there is the prestigious art award for female Ghanaian artists. It featured the debut presentation of a recent recipient, whose work utilizes personal family archives to create a depiction of life in the nation's recent history. The event also crowned a latest winner, whose diverse work is deeply focused on the weaving practices of women in Dabala.

An Enduring Impact

While the overseas community has more and more been attracted back to west Africa during the colder season, a growing cohort are considering travelling earlier in the year to experience the area's festival period. From this festival and regional art fairs, what is evident are creative communities that are not merely new or “upcoming” but have established an whole landscape that is enduring.

Finally, the experience offers a image of Accra that serves as a statement for ecological stewardship and the safeguarding of heritage. It is a powerful homage to adaptability in all its forms.