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The doors of Gallery 1957 open for a brand new group exhibition featuring works from Abdur Rahman Muhammad, Araba Opoku, Awanle Ayiboro Hawa Ali, and several other talented artists. The exhibition, When The Birds Fly Home, which showcases the artists' individuality in their practice and experience in the collective contemporary art space in Ghana, stirs a recent conversation I had with Ghanaian-born visual artist Araba Opoku.

It was a few weeks before the curtain call of her sophomore solo exhibition Whispers Down the Lane when Araba Opoku sat down with AMAKA to chat about how she felt about her body of work that had stewed for over a month in the exhibition halls of Gallery 1957.

Before our interview, she had spent a chunk of her day at the Kokrobitey Institute. Perched on the outskirts of Accra, across the Atlantic coast in the town of Kokrobite, the Institute is home to the development of art, culture, design, health, and sustainable development through literacy. She had spent the day learning and marveling at the knowledge of the owner, 75-year-old Renée C. Neblett.

It was a 27-degree warm late afternoon in the bustling city of Accra when the Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize winner appeared on my screen.

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A.O: Hello! So sorry I was on the road and trying to join as quickly as possible.

KM: It's fine, I understand! How are you today?

A.O: I'm good you?

KM: I'm good! The sun is out so that's a plus; it's been very gloomy this past week so it seems like a good day already with the sun out. How has your week been so far?

A.O: Stressful, emotional, everything and everything I guess *chuckles* It's [been] a standard week.

KM: Why do you say so? How do your weeks normally go?

A.O: More like I'm supposed to be resting right now, but I don't know how to rest so it's been a busy day every day.

KM: Sorry to have taken you out of your resting weekend. It's about 5 pm now in Accra, how did you spend your day?

A.O: I went to this institute [Kokrobitey Institute] that's focused on recycling materials and thinking about the future from an African perspective. Redefining the art scene to make - Guys I said I'm in a meeting (she calls to a couple of people conversing in the hallway) sorry about that (to me).

KM: That's alright.

A.O: Yeah so the place [Kokorobitey Institute] is out of town so it took two hours to get there and two hours to get back.

KM: I know you practically just rushed into the interview, do you want to take a couple of minutes to take a breather or should we continue?

A.O: I actually have somewhere to be, so let's carry on!

KM: Carry on we shall! So it's the fourth week of your exhibition, how is that going?

A.O: I want to say it's great *laughs* It is great on the exhibition front for sure. I have separated myself from the work for a while so it's nice for people to come up to me and be like \"oh your exhibition was amazing\" especially [if it's from] intellectuals in the art world or people and people you respect. It's been great.

KM: Did you visit the exhibition every week?

A.O: I tried my best to go, but I just [couldn't] bring myself to get ready. I'm more of a homebody and couch potato for now.

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KM: *chuckles* And how's school going? Are you in session right now?

A.O: We're on vacation because of the pandemic Our schedule got messed up so we're reopening in January. I actually wrote my last paper before the opening of the show. [When we open] in January that would be my fourth year and then I'm done with my Bachelors.

KM: Oh so you're just about to start your fourth year?

A.O: Yeah.

KM: That sounds perfect. And in terms of the exhibition, what has the reception been like from friends and family?

A.O: Everyone is amazed. I did a solo show with Ada Contemporary Art Gallery, which is another big commercial gallery in Ghana, in April; and in looking at how small the gatekeepers in the Ghana art scene are, we have only two prominent commercial galleries, I battled with [repetition].

You can't produce the same work to the same crowd, you have to do something different, you have to challenge yourself and that's what I did.

The feedback was \"your show in its entirety was definitely different from your previous show\" and that was the response I was expecting so that was great.

KM: I imagine that must feel amazing. There are about 15 pieces in the exhibition, but I'm curious to know a bit about your favorites.

A.O: There are actually 16 pieces in the body of work but only 15 were shown in the solo show and one was shown upstairs in another gallery. [One of] my favourites are Hello Ganymede, Meet Europa. It's one of the smallest works.

KM: Will you say this is your best, seeing as this was already at the top of your head?

A.O: It's difficult for me to choose a number one, there are always multiple and sometimes it's unfair to my babies. it's like having kids and saying one is better than the other.

KM: Yeah that would be unfair. So what about this piece? What's the story behind it?

Hello Ganymede, Meet Europa 105cm x 157cm

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A.O: Because it's a body of work there's an overarching theme. There isn't necessarily a story for each [piece] but with the titles, there are specific titles because it flows. I was heavily inspired by the lunar cycle and by extension the moons in our galaxy, that's how the naming came about basically.

I think [people] have a fair idea of what my work is about, with regards to water scarcity.

If you don't, read this Araba x water scarcity

This was me still exploring that theme but instead of focusing on the aesthetics of a space, this time I wanted to go outside and look at architecture, the lunar cycle, and also tools that are used for fetching water. There was no figuration in this body of work, there were no tiles, no details, and no patterns. I was focused on the collaging, and the mixture of busyness in the landscape. I did a lot of collages for this work and the final works look a bit chaotic.

I'm inspired by fantasy, I'm also into world-building. I believe every work is building a world. If you look at the work you can step into a different world, into a universe that I've created and I'm inviting you into. I'm also into mythology, that's where the naming of the works with [names of the] moons in the galaxy comes from. Anything that isn't necessarily proven in this world or scientific, you have me there. I'm obsessed with them.

The reason why it's [one of] my favorites is because of the color. Hello Ganymede, Meet Europa has accents of red in it. Also, if you're looking at the work for the first time it looks like there's a portal in the middle with stairs leading up to it. That's why I'm obsessed with it. To me the portal allows you to dream bigger, beyond the tenets and margins that have been set for you.

So that's why this is one of my favorites because of its color and the fact that it looks like a portal.

Hello Ganymede, Meet Europa 105cm x 157cm

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KM: *Tilts head to find the portal and the stairs*

If this piece were to speak to you and I, what would it say?

A.O: Welcome *laughs* It would [say] Welcome, climb the stairs. I'm inviting you to an experience unseen and unheard of.

That's what I see when I look at it. It's like when you enter an exhibition room and you're far away from a work and you take a look at it. Then you move closer, take two more steps and eventually, the work is in your [face] and that's all you see and it seems endless.

KM: That's a recurring factor in your work. It has the power to pull you closer. When I saw your work at Art X Lagos in 2021 it only started taking shape and coming together the further I went towards it.

A.O: I'm so interested in layering the effect of it. And the detail and chaos it brings.

KM: It's honestly such a fascinating concept. Any more favorites?

A.O: My second [favorite] is The night I saved the bed from *butchers the word Epithemeus* I always mix that name up *laughs*. It's one of my biggest works and the third work I worked on in the residency. I love this work because it also has a burst of color. It has this dirty yellow coming through the work.

The Night I Saved the Bed From Epithemeus 203cm x 315cm

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KM: Yeah I see that.

A.O: I love that. The [piece] is a bit personal to me. The collages I made [for this] were inspired by my mom's home. The whole body of work was inspired by places I've lived in and also places I've spent a little bit of time in, but with this work, I grew up in the house so I guess that's another reason why it calls to me.

A.O: Wheels of Herse was the first work I did at the residency (at Gallery 1957) and it took me two months to finish.

KM: Because of the size of the piece?

Wheels of Herse 203cm x 215cm

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A.O: Because I was trying to introduce something new into my work. It took me two months because I needed to get it right in order to get the other works right. I was working on the others but I kept on coming back to this one to make sure the vision was there. So it's my favourite because it's the first work I did in this body of work.

Spending more time with it made me build a relationship with it. That's one thing I intend to do in the future, spend more time with my work.

A.O: Helike Coldfire [was] the second work I did. My work is in twos because it is supposed to represent twins. I was focused on the idea of parallels, so each work has a twin. This was a favorite because I enjoyed doing the outlines and I loved how huge the spaces were. I love yellow and I've noticed that about myself in my work. Yellow keeps coming back to me.

KM: I can definitely see that, I notice you use a lot of greens and blues also, not just in this body of work but also in your previous works.

Helike; cold fire 203cm x 215cm

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A.O: Yeah even in my previous work. For this year (2022) I want to exhaust the colours I use and the objects of study as much as possible and then move on to another idea or project. That's why I've stuck with the greens and the blues, also because they symbolize water, both the flow of water and the stagnancy of water.

KM: What's a personal memory or experience that bubbles up when you stare at this piece?

A.O: Fetching rainwater. In times when you have no water, you would literally look for other venues, and once the rain falls the buckets will be out. That was something we used to do a lot.

Titans Voyage 165cm x 145cm

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A.O: The actual collage I did [for Titans Voyage] and everything I joined together looked like it was an aerial shot of the object I used. Which was very interesting because it looked like it was a fisheye lens that was capturing the pictures and I loved that.

Putting paint on it realised this beautiful body of work.

KM: The intentionality behind every piece, color, and size is all so interesting, to be honest. The parallels you spoke about earlier, was this something you have envisioned as well? In terms of how it would be executed in presentation.

A.O: I had this notebook and I wrote down all the sizes. The 400 x 600s were originally supposed to be 300 x 400s and like three months into the residency, I was like \"yeah I want to go bigger\" because they had the wall space and I wanted to challenge myself.

KM: What's one reoccurring comment you get on your pieces?

A.O: The reoccurring comment would be what you just said about the fact you never realize how many details are in the work. Also, the fact that the work is fluid, it bends, almost like looking at something through the lens of water.

KM: I agree with that and it's largely because of all the layers, curves, and bends. How do you avoid getting caught up in the complexity of the form when working on a large canvas?

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A.O: If I'm doing a body of work, I normally set up a regimen that guides me in case I go a month without doing work I come back I can just look back. Through that new ideas sometimes form.

With the painting itself, there's no format to it. But before I get to the painting level, there's a procedure for it. I do the wash first, then I do the patterns, then I do the outline of the sketch, and then paint the outline of the sketch. But it changes [because] with every body of work, I develop a new procedure.

KM: There's so much to unpack about your work and process, but my final question is how the body of work and the title Whispers Down the Lane actually connect. From all we've discussed, bits and pieces of the works are drawn from several parts of your life and interest, but with heavier influences from the lunar system, hence the individual naming. What connects it all?

A.O: With Whispers Down the Lane, we were supposed to do a performance in the show at the end where we pass water from bucket to bucket, like a transference of information. Whispers down the lane, dubbed from Chinese whispers, is about transferring information and how the information changes. If you read the poems that accompany each piece, you'd notice each story flows to the end. That's what Whispers Down the Lane was.

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This conversation has been edited for clarity*

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