Arts and GH Heritage
The Day the Antelope Danced: Uncovering the Soul of Ashanti’s Adowa
Imagine a dying queen mother, a desperate kingdom, and a frantic search for a miracle. This is where the story of Ghana’s most beloved dance begins. It wasn’t in a rehearsal hall, but in the quiet depths of an Ashanti forest.
The year is lost to memory, but the tale remains. The Ashanti Kingdom’s Queen Mother, Abrewa Tutuwa, lay gravely ill.
Her healers had failed. In their desperation, the elders turned to the gods. The message was clear: find a live antelope, a creature of the wild, to be part of a sacred healing ritual.
The kingdom’s bravest warriors, the Asafo companies, were dispatched into the thick forest . For days, they searched with no luck.
Defeated and tired, they decided to turn back home. But on their return journey, something strange happened.
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They saw it—an antelope, moving through the undergrowth with a grace they had never witnessed.
It wasn’t just walking; it was performing. It dipped and swayed, its feet tracing patterns on the earth, its head turning with a quiet dignity.
The warriors froze. They watched, mesmerized, and began to quietly mimic the animal’s movements, committing them to memory.
When they finally arrived back in the village without the antelope, they didn’t come empty-handed. They brought something far more lasting: a dance.
In front of the anxious household, they re-enacted the antelope’s mesmerizing performance, a gift of movement to lift the queen mother’s spirit.
The elderly women of the village watched the warriors’ imitation and saw its beauty.
They took these raw, masculine movements, softened them, and gave them rhythm and expression. They perfected the steps, shaping them into the dance we now call Adowa—the Twi name for that very same royal antelope.
Today, Adowa has travelled far beyond that forest encounter. It has become the voice of the Akan people, speaking at funerals, festivals, and the durbar of chiefs.
But if you watch closely, you can still see its origins. When a dancer bends low, you see the antelope bowing its head. The subtle, fluttering gestures of a white handkerchief?
Perhaps an echo of an animal twitching an ear in the quiet bush. The flick of a foot, the proud arch of a neck—it is all there.
A living, breathing memory of a moment when nature taught us how to move, and a dying queen mother was gifted a dance that would outlive us all.
Arts and GH Heritage
The KNUST Dean Who Rewrote the Rules of Art Education Wins 2026 Prince Claus Impact Award
One of Prof. karî’kachä seid’ou’s most revealing observations is that he considers himself “exiled from the North Atlantic.”
It is a witty phrase, but it also captures a career built on an unusual conviction: that world-changing ideas do not need to leave Africa to matter.
That philosophy has now earned the Dean of KNUST’s Faculty of Art the 2026 Prince Claus Impact Award, recognising more than two decades of reshaping how art is taught, created and understood.
Rewriting who gets to define art
Rather than placing painting or sculpture at the top of an artistic hierarchy, seid’ou’s Emancipatory Art Teaching Project encouraged students to experiment across disciplines and collaborate across generations.
The initiative grew beyond the classroom into exhibitions, research projects and creative communities that challenged inherited ideas about who has the authority to define art.
Its influence transformed KNUST’s fine-art curriculum, producing artists, curators, scholars and educators who now shape Ghana’s contemporary art scene and contribute to wider conversations about decolonial practice across Africa.
A Ghanaian vision with global reach
His impact has drawn attention from publications including African Arts, ArtReview, The New York Times, The Guardian and the Financial Times.
The community-driven collective blaxTARLINES, which he co-founded, has appeared on ArtReview’s Power 100 list for four consecutive years.
As the Prince Claus Fund marks 30 years of celebrating changemakers, seid’ou’s recognition highlights something larger than an individual achievement.
It affirms that some of the world’s most influential cultural ideas are being imagined, debated and refined from Kumasi—and that Ghana’s classrooms can be as transformative as any global museum.
Before a single word is spoken, a hairstyle can announce belonging, confidence, rebellion—or memory.
That quiet truth sits at the heart of Hairstyle Politics, the new exhibition by German artist, anthropologist and historian Dr. Ilsmargaret Luttman at Annobil Contemporary Gallery in Accra, where African hair is treated not as fashion alone but as a living archive.
For generations across Ghana and the wider continent, hair has carried meanings that rarely appear in textbooks.
A braid could mark a life stage, an elaborate style could celebrate status, and adornments could signal identity long before introductions were exchanged.
The exhibition invites visitors to see these traditions not as relics of the past but as an evolving language that continues to shape how people present themselves today.
Art That Mirrors Cultural Memory
Luttman’s work gains its distinctive character through an unusual process that blends painting, stencil printing and paper cutting.
The layered compositions echo the very histories they explore—built, erased, reshaped and remembered.
Rather than presenting African aesthetics from a distance, the exhibition reflects decades of travel and engagement across Ghana, Cameroon, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, allowing personal encounters to inform artistic interpretation.
Installed in the gallery’s intimate Jill Silverman Room, the works encourage close looking.
Familiar hairstyles become symbols of resilience, creativity and self-definition, revealing how appearance has often served as a subtle form of negotiation in changing social and political landscapes.
As the exhibition runs until September 26, 2026, it offers something beyond an art viewing. It asks a simple but profound question: what histories are we carrying every time we style our hair?
Every memorable art gallery begins with someone who believes a painting deserves more than a wall—it deserves an audience.
In Accra, that belief has shaped Berj Art Gallery into one of Ghana’s enduring champions of West African art.
Founded in 1996 by collector Joyce Quarshie, Berj emerged at a time when many Ghanaian artists were still searching for spaces that could connect their work with wider audiences.
More than three decades later, Quarshie’s commitment has grown into a gallery that celebrates both established masters and emerging voices under one roof.
A Living Story of West African Art
Walking through Berj feels less like entering a showroom and more like stepping into a conversation across generations.
Bold paintings share space with finely carved wooden sculptures, bronze works catch the light from different angles, and photographs add contemporary perspectives to centuries-old artistic traditions.
The gallery’s strength lies in that balance. Acclaimed painters stand alongside rising talents, creating a rare opportunity for visitors to see Ghana’s artistic evolution unfolding in real time.
It is a reminder that culture is not frozen in history; it continues to grow with every new brushstroke and every fresh creative voice.
More Than a Gallery
For international visitors exploring Accra, Berj offers something deeper than a sightseeing stop. It opens a window into Ghana’s creative identity, where craftsmanship, storytelling and heritage intersect.
As the gallery continues hosting exhibitions that bring together local and international artistic influences, it reinforces a simple but powerful truth: preserving culture is not only about protecting the past.
It is about creating spaces where the next generation of artists can imagine—and exhibit—the future.
