The Living Project

Sandra Oehy: As a starting point, let’s dive in quite deep. I wanted to highlight a self-description I read: You describe your own artistic work as »living projects.«

Kenneth Boa-Amponsem: Right.

SO: And »living projects,« for you, means that your projects are evolving continuously, as life experience and discourse, in the broadest sense, help you reconfigure and expand the narratives of each work.

KB: Exactly!

SO: Before you go on, as we sit at Akademie Schloss Solitude in April 2025: Looking back from a distance, both spatially and temporally, how has your practice evolved, and what are the roots informing your practice since you started as an artist? How would you adapt the idea of »living projects« to your artistic practice?

KB: That is a fantastic thought, because I’ve always considered my projects as living projects. But it’s so interesting how you’ve pointed out that my practice itself has, also, been a living project, considering how I began with an engineering degree, and then for a period worked in marketing. But even prior to marketing, I worked as a photographer, and through photography I got into image creation and how one could compose stories in a still image – one image could pack in many stories. So I really got into image creation through photography, and image creation was my pathway into art. I wanted to push the envelope from taking images with a camera, to creating my own images, and in that way tell my own stories with a lot more freedom. Fundamentally my practice has been a search to tell different stories in different ways and mediums. I enjoy that, because it’s very exploratory, and its exploratory nature demands that I’m constantly having to learn new things, adapting things per story and per piece. I like that you mentioned this because I’ve never really considered this parallel between my life and my projects. When I look back at my life, and therefore also my practice, I would say it’s always been a gradual progression. I’m sometimes having to learn, after distilling a story, how exactly I’d like to put it into a new medium. My practice demands that I’m constantly learning. Whether it has to do with creating a piece of clothing, curating a show or an exhibition, or designing sculptures. How exactly can somebody see these pieces and then get the feeling that I was trying to transmit through the works?

SO: That leads me to the next question. What motivates you, as an artist, to be a storyteller, or to tell stories? Why is this so important to you?

KB: Stories are so important. Historically, stories have been the way we’ve preserved our history over time – everything is eventually put into a story. A lesson you want to teach a young child is often packaged in a story. Stories have been the way we’ve preserved ideas and communicated them. I like that the vehicle of storytelling can do that. I love to learn things and love when I learn things through story. And I love when I’m also able to synthesize the story myself and then get it across to another person. So, stories, to me, are incredibly essential. I heard somewhere that when a person is listening to a story, their heart begins to beat in subtle rhythms they don’t even notice. The deeper they’re drawn in, the more their body responds. Their breath, their pulse, all shift in silent sync with the story. How fascinating. That’s how many ideas stick so well when carried in the vehicle of a story.

SO: You work with a lot of concepts and ideas. Can we delve into a specific piece, as an example, to give a little background? Perhaps, the one you presented at Literaturhaus Stuttgart?

KB: Given the perspective you just shared, about how my practice has imitated the nature of my pieces, I think my Ghana 2 The World pieces would be a great example. I was in Ghana when I conceptualized this idea of celebrating personalities of Ghanaian origin, and their stories, which may not be known outside of Ghana. Even back home, young people in Ghana are so familiar with the lives and stories of their Western idols, infatuated with Western personalities. I asked myself: »How do I present personalities to them who have more in common with them and with which they can have an even more real connection?« The phrase »Ghana to the world!« is a popular local expression in Ghana used to celebrate Ghana’s influence in music, art, fashion, sports, and business on the international stage. And so, I created these Ghana 2 The World pieces, which touch on different personalities.

Ama Ata Aidoo was an author, playwright, and academic from Ghana. Her debut play was the first to be published by an African woman, and she was Ghana’s first female Minister of Education, in 1982. Unfortunately, young people in Ghana, presently, have not embraced her work as much as they have embraced the work of others. So, through people like her – or Azumah Nelson, who was the first African to become a multidivision World Boxing Council world champion; or Osibisa, who are a band consisting mainly of Ghanaians who paved the way for the global popularity of Afrobeat and other African genres – I wanted to tell these stories of people who took their gifts and talents outside of Ghana.

This is where art imitated life. When I began creating these pieces and telling these stories, I, too, started getting invitations outside of Ghana, to tell these very stories. And that’s how Ghana 2 The World became a story about me as well. I was now taking Ghana to the world, too – sitting here with you in Stuttgart, a long way from home, telling you stories about Ghana. Presenting Ama Ata Aidoo’s work in the Literaturhaus. That was the entire point. I love how my practice and these stories have bled into each other.

SO: Can you share something about your FREEDOM piece? You and I have talked about it previously, and it gives an insight into how you adapt and create stories.

KB: Of course. Kwame Nkrumah, the subject of that piece, is very celebrated in Ghana. He helped lead Ghana out of colonial rule, and fought for our freedom. I worked with an image that shows him being carried and paraded through the city. The piece says »Since 1957,« which was the year that we officially gained independence. If you look in history books for when Ghana gained freedom, you’re most likely to see the year 1957. Historically that is true for the history books, but not to me. As a people, Ghanaians have been free forever. And it’s that freedom of spirit that Nkrumah channeled into gaining freedom from colonial rule. And so, when you see in the final piece that »Since 1957« is rewritten to read »Since 19 kojo ho ho,« that is a Ghanaian expression, saying that Ghana has always been free. The piece is also a reflection on my time as a young boy in primary school, where history lessons still tend to start with the arrival of people who sought to colonize us. But our history extends way beyond that. It’s a flaw in our educational system to not highlight enough what we were way before colonial rule. With this piece I was commenting on that as well. Who were we before someone came to tell us who we are?

SO: Right. I also asked about this work because in our past conversations you told me that this is one of the works that took you through different mediums. Part of your storytelling is also dispersion, or distribution. Can you tell us more about this part of your understanding of storytelling, and how it relates to your practice so far, and how it might evolve in the future?

KB: That’s right. For this piece, like many of my pieces, I created complementary garments. The story is in the image, but also in the garment. When I was a boy, I would always look at the shirts in my closet and felt like they had certain lives of their own. Sometimes I would feel bad for not wearing one piece enough, because in my mind that shirt wanted to go out, live, breathe, and enjoy the sunlight. I almost looked at the shirts as individuals sitting in this closet. I would draw one out and say: »Today’s the day I take you out and give you some sunshine and make people experience you.« To me, these pieces all had personalities. In hindsight, that was an early understanding of the material life and the memory that objects hold. Which is the starting point for my translation of my stories into clothes, giving them another degree of life, beyond the initial piece.

The form of a garment like a T-shirt preserves the stories even further, and makes them more accessible, as they get worn by people in different parts of the world. As opposed to the story sitting in a room, now it could be in ten rooms in a day. It could be in five rooms in a day. It could be experienced by many more people, with potential to start much more conversation. In my eyes, the story is now »free.« It’s more democratized. What is most important to me is the conversations that they start. I sometimes wear these pieces and I have hours of conversations just from somebody asking »Oh, what’s this about? This is so interesting.« So, the motivation behind the translation is the eventual embodiment of the stories and the ripple effects they start. The story that could solely be hanging on a wall is now being worn by somebody, who is embodying the story in their own unique way and giving it this whole new life. Not to mention, with the garment now a canvas for the story, it is also acquiring its own additional story; acquiring its own material memories.

These T-shirts I have installed here in my studio, for example, I have had for almost a decade and I’ve worn them all over the world. They contain memories in addition to the stories that they are a canvas for. And this combination, to me, is really interesting. The idea of trapping thoughts in a book that will always speak. To me, the power that books have is present in other objects as well, and T-shirts are one of them. They are one of the most basic pieces of clothing, and it’s interesting to have the most basic piece of clothing have such an effective communicative power when worn. The life within the garment is very interesting to me.

SO: For those who may not know, you have been producing caps and T-shirts that have been circulating quite successfully in Ghana and internationally. They are already out there, telling stories and forming part of your artistic practice as a storyteller.

KB: That’s right.

SO: I also wanted to ask you about the examples you gave of these experiences, when the stories come back to you. Will these further influence your work? Would you like to use these distributed pieces more intentionally in the future?

KB: Through a connection I made at the Akademie’s recent Open Solitude, I have been in conversation with the Linden Museum here in Stuttgart, where I am looking to explore translation of some pieces, and stories, in their African Collection into wearable forms, similar to what I have been doing with my personal pieces and stories. This will bring to life an idea I have been developing for quite some time. Following through on my motivation to »free« stories, to give them legs, and to allow them to be democratized and accessed by different people and in different ways – especially people who may never access the rooms that the actual pieces live in but still could likely be impacted in a great or small way from the pieces’ stories and essence. I believe that this will be worth exploring for museum pieces and collections, to complement the existing conversation of repatriation. Art is powerful, and I believe that most stories should be as accessible as possible. And I have always thought garments, and allowing people to embody stories through wearable forms, are an interesting vehicle to accomplish this accessibility. I would like to explore this more expansively as I move forward.

SO: I do find that interesting. Allowing people to embody these stories as a form or accessibility and directional agency. How do you go about the curatorial and collaborative aspects of your work? You appear to be really careful with these stories and also intentional about how your form of storytelling is evolving.

KB: I’m somebody who finds a lot of things interesting. So, there’s never really a lack of stories to be told, because I’m always struck by something new that I’ve been told and how that may relate to something new that I was told the day before. Being intentional about conversations with different people from different spheres affords me the ability to constantly draw parallels between ideas and topics. And that’s where the most interesting stories are told. That sweet spot between different perspectives.

SO: How do you see the way with which you present your work evolving over time, perhaps even relating to collaboration?

KB: As I have always allowed for stories to come to me, and tried to not predefine what stories to tell, I have found that with every story or idea that I get, they each come with their own way that they would like to be presented. That said, I try to not predefine their presentation. Doing that will stifle the birth of the idea in some sense, from it being what it wants to be. As you begin bringing an idea to life, you realize, in the process, the best way to present it. Which is why I prize my fluidity with mediums – from video installations to image creation, to clothing pieces. I try to get the ideas across just as they came to me. There’s a lot of freedom in my thinking when I make these decisions, I choose to allow the idea to become what it is meant to become. And I love when that, sometimes, means I have to collaborate with somebody to bring it to life.

SO: Bringing the living projects to life.

KB: Exactly.

SO: What projects and collaborations are you currently working on? You mentioned the exhibition, but there’s also another collaboration with a textile artist. What coming next?

KB: Currently I’m working on a project called Old-News: Text-Tiles. It came to me through a Malcolm Muggeridge quote I saw that says »All new news is old news happening to new people«. It is born from the belief I have that everything that is happening now has happened before, in one way or another. If you consider certain headlines we see in the news today, it can be alarming how much resemblance they bear with news headlines from decades ago. In the same way, you can read news headlines from years ago and they sound like they could be happening today. Politically, socially, on various levels. You find that stories are just retelling themselves in new ways. My Old-News project explores that, juxtaposing the present and past, through a study of news and headlines, and looks to create new forms from this. Creating textiles with text.

What I find most interesting, with this project, is that it presents these interesting headlines from different eras together, and at first look one cannot tell which ones happened decades ago and which ones happened just yesterday. I’ve long been fascinated by just how cyclical life, the world, society, is. Once more, putting these stories together makes you immediately notice the patterns we’re repeating as a people. And from there we can ask whether we can put an end to some of these patterns, because some of them are on the negative side. When we realize the sins of our fathers that are looking to repeat themselves in us, are we capable of making a change? I believe this is just a starting point in that journey. This is why it’s important to put these stories side by side. And telling stories from the past in present or modern forms is a prominent fixture in my practice. I’m working on this with a textile artist here in Stuttgart, which is an added layer of interest to me, because I come with my perspectives as a Ghanaian and she comes with her perspectives as a German, and the work that we birth together will be even more interesting, culturally.

SO: When I walked into your studio, there was one thing here that I didn’t see when I was here last time. And it’s a book that you got as a gift.

KB: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

The object isn’t to make art

it’s to be in that wonderful state

which makes art inevitable.

Robert Henri¹

SO: That’s right. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, which starts with a quote by Robert Henri: »The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.« That, I guess, is something you connect to.

KB: That resonates with me incredibly. Like I said to you before, I like to live a life which, essentially, would be inspiring to myself. This quote to me is a call to live the most inspiring life possible. Your priority should be to live life to the highest and most inspiring level possible, because it is the life you live that will ultimately inspire the art you make. Don’t worry about being validated as an artist. If you’re an artist, you’re an artist. It’s your mind. Your mind is the asset.

SO: Exactly.

KB: And the experiences that you fill your mind with; your mind is going to give back to you in artistic ideas. I love that quote so much because it’s really a call to make sure that you are inspired as much as possible by the people you surround yourself with, the places you go to, the conversations you have. Because you are just a conduit and your mind is going to take all of that and create something wonderful from that. Seek to be inspired.

SO: »Seek to be inspired.« That’s a good end quote. Thank you for this interview.

 

Unless stated otherwise, all images are courtesy of Kenneth Boa-Amponsem.