In Atakpamé, Ghanaian artist Dr. Frederick Bamfo transforms discarded garments into interactive spaces where children, cultural memory and collective play meet.

A discarded shirt can carry more than the memory of a former owner. In the hands of Ghanaian artist and academic Dr. Frederick Bamfo, it can become part of a place where children gather, games begin and strangers find reasons to connect.

His installation, The Games Feast, developed during the Karp Artists’ and Researchers’ Residency in Atakpamé, Togo, gives second-hand clothing a new social life.

Using Broni Wawu garments purchased at a local market, Bamfo creates enclosed and open environments designed for participation rather than distant observation.

The choice of material speaks to a familiar West African reality. Second-hand clothing circulates through markets, connecting consumers to international trade networks while raising questions about consumption, waste and the afterlife of textiles.

Often valued primarily for their usefulness or affordability, these garments become something different in Bamfo’s work: vessels of memory and possibilities for human connection.

The installation’s defining feature, however, is not simply its reuse of clothing. It is what happens inside these improvised spaces.

Children help shape the project’s collaborative spirit, while games such as ludo and oware, alongside dancing and skipping, turn the artwork into a setting for shared experience.

These activities draw on familiar forms of play that have long helped communities build relationships and pass cultural knowledge between generations.

Here, they also challenge conventional ideas of an art installation as something to admire without touching or entering.

For Bamfo, the transformation is both material and social. Clothing once associated with individual bodies becomes a collective environment, while everyday games become tools for participation.

In Atakpamé, The Games Feast suggests that the most meaningful second life of a discarded garment may not be another wardrobe, but a space where people come together.

From Ghana’s traditional craftsmen to self-taught street artists, creative excellence rarely follows a single road.

An artist may spend years in a university studio learning perspective, composition and art history.

Another may acquire the same confidence with materials through years of observation, experimentation and work passed down through generations. Which deserves greater recognition?

At Hotel Hong Kong in Atakpamé, Togo, this question became a starting point for a wider conversation about who gets to define artistic excellence.

Beyond the walls of the academy

The panel discussion, organised as part of the ongoing Karp Kamina Artists and Researchers Residency, brought together Ghanaian artists Frederick Bamfo, Livingstone Amoako and Ray Agbo.

Moderated by Kojo Biney, with Samuel Olou, the residency’s director, translating into French, the conversation examined the opportunities and limitations of formal and self-directed artistic education.

Art academies offer structured training, experienced mentors, studio facilities and access to professional networks.

Yet these advantages do not automatically produce originality. Outside institutional settings, artists often develop distinctive approaches through everyday encounters, community knowledge, apprenticeships and experimentation.

Ghana’s traditions offer another lesson

Ghana’s fantasy coffin makers illustrate why artistic knowledge cannot be measured by academic qualifications alone.

These craftspeople transform wood into elaborate forms representing professions, personal identities and family histories.

Their expertise is built through practical experience, inherited techniques and close relationships between makers and their communities.

Such traditions challenge institutions to reconsider what counts as legitimate artistic training and whose work deserves exhibition space, critical attention and commercial support.

Making room for different creative journeys

The discussion at Hotel Hong Kong did not present formal education and independent practice as opposing forces.

Instead, it highlighted the need for an art world that values technical knowledge without dismissing unconventional paths.

For African artists navigating galleries, museums and international exhibitions, that distinction matters.

Creativity may begin in a classroom, a workshop or on the street. The greater challenge is ensuring that opportunity does not depend solely on where an artist learned to create.

An old building can hold more than dust and silence. In Atakpamé, Togo, an abandoned German colonial structure is finding a new purpose as a space where African cultural expression challenges the weight of history.

Through Conversations: Symbolism and Lifestyle, Ghanaian artists Kojo Biney and Ray Agbo invite audiences to look afresh at the ordinary encounters that bind communities together.

Their paintings and sculptures explore a language that often needs no words: the exchange of kola nuts, bargaining between market traders and customers, and the sharing of palm wine.

These gestures may appear familiar, yet each carries social meaning. They can express welcome, negotiate relationships, establish trust and pass knowledge between generations.

By bringing such moments into the gallery, the artists suggest that culture is not preserved only in museums or ceremonial performances. It lives in everyday interactions.

A building becomes part of the conversation

Presented during the Karp Kamina Artists and Researchers Residency 2026, the exhibition draws on Atakpamé’s cultural landscape, where Ana and Ewe-speaking communities meet. Known as the “city of seven hills”, the town provides a fitting setting for an exploration of identity and shared heritage.

The installation also places paintings alongside newspaper pages, linking artistic interpretation with the ways public events and personal memories become part of the historical record.

Yet the building itself may be the exhibition’s most powerful statement. Once associated with German colonial rule, the structure now houses contemporary African perspectives. Its past is not erased; instead, it becomes part of the encounter.

For older visitors, the space may recall another era. For younger audiences, it offers an opportunity to question how history shapes the present.

As the exhibition closes on Friday, October 16, 2026, its lasting invitation is to recognise that heritage is not frozen in time. Like conversation itself, it remains alive through the meanings people continue to create and share.