NANA OFORI ATTA AYIM

‍D233: How did the places you lived and grew up in impact your life and career choice?

NOA: Very much so, in that I grew up in between cultures. I never fully belonged to one culture, and so was interested in the gaps in between in which you were indefinable, but could see clearly the stories that cultures told themselves about themselves; and also the disjunctures between what people said about different places, and the realities of them. How even though places were each different in their own way that in many, in the most fundamental, ways, they were really very much the same.

D233: What is the most significant event in your life that inspired you to become a cultural historian?

NOA: I’m not sure there’s a single event, it’s been more of a journey.

D233: Who are your mentors?

NOA: I have mentors that I have met or have been part of my life, some only very briefly, my tutor for my History of Art MA, John Picton, who showed a dedication to his students’ minds, I’d never experienced before, and Professor J.H. Nketia, who shepherded me at Legon University when I was doing field research, and who in his eighties remains utterly engaged, passionate, and inspiring. Chris Marker, for whom I translated a film, and who is one of my filmic godfathers. John Berger, who I’m soon to send my finished book to, and who reminds me what it’s all about every time I pick up one of his books. Ayi Kwei Armah, whose wisdom and erudition I strive towards. Susan Sontag, who I met briefly, and who awed me into silence, but whose writing gives me voice. And mentors I’ve never met, that still guide me, Plato, Tolstoy, Dambudzo Marechera, Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Deren, and many others.

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D233: How right would we be to classify you as a contemporary Ghanaian artist?

NOA: People are always asking me whether I’m an artist. I’m reluctant to take on another moniker, I already have a triple one, and I think I prefer to be described by what I do; write; make films; uncover cultures with their contexts, connections and trajectories; but I do shows in exhibition and museum spaces, and the word artist does encompass many different creative endeavors, so maybe it’s a shortcut?

D233: Is your thesis on contemporary Ghanaian art playing a role in your current productions?

NOA: Yes, I first learnt about some of the artists (like Owusu Ankomah, Ablade Glover, Kofi Setordji, Wiz, Nii Obodai Provencal) that I still hope to collaborate with in some way today whilst researching for my thesis, and also of the links and trajectories between historical and contemporary; so it gave it all a foundation and a starting point.

D233: Watching your films Crossover, Tied and True, Nowhere Else but Here, there is rich overlay of poetry in your scripts, blending artistically with you sounds and imagery. Your writings are similarly intertwined with poetry. How has this style of writing and filmmaking made your work distinctive as a contemporary art?

NOA: That’s for others to say, I think. There are a lot of elements I try and bring together in my work, in terms of rhythms and layers, which are informed by everything from the Ayan of Akyem Abuakwa, to Plato’s dialectics, to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s films.

D233: Where does your work fall within contemporary Ghanaian art?

NOA: I think this is also for others to say, for someone looking from the outside in. There is definitely a generation, which is coming up now that is synthesizing many different elements into their work in particular ways, but I’m not sure how neatly my work falls in with others, though there are definitely synergies and conversations between our works.

D233: You use different media for your work- film, writings and exhibitions. How do you select your medium of narration and which medium has been the most successful for you?

NOA: I think the medium in a way selects itself. There are some stories that can only be told through film, and some only through the process of writing, others need the open and experimental space of the exhibition. I am happy I can work within all three. All three require very different processes, and I think success is defined by the process and by how well I journey from idea to execution.

D233: Who are the subjects of your work? I am using work to describe what you do because you explore different media in your productions.

NOA: The subjects differ with each work. I don’t know if I could describe them in one all-encompassing term, or even in a few words.

D233: Who are your audience?

NOA: I don’t know. Hopefully people from all over the world and of all different backgrounds. Hopefully people of all ages.

D233: What role is your work playing in filling the ‘holes’ in our stories as Ghanaians, looking at how we have not taken full advantage of the ‘printing press, periodicals and encyclopedias’?

NOA: I wouldn’t presume to be telling the stories of all Ghanaians, but I would like to tell some of the stories that I hear and see and feel that haven’t been told, and add to the kaleidoscope of representations.

‍D233: Your PhD was in Ayan or drum poetics as an indigenous philosophical, aesthetic and analytical tool. Poetry as you know it is verbal so how is drumming, which is musical, poetic? What is the Ayan or drum poetry?

NOA: The Ayan is a language spoken on the drum. Twi is a tonal language, so two drums, one male, one female, follow the tone patterns of language, and thereby create a new language, told by the drum. The poetry told on the drums is different to that spoken by the tongue. It is mysterious, elliptical, philosophical.

D233: Drumming was used in the olden days in different forms of communication and entertainment. How relevant is drumming to the Ghanaian culture currently? Does it hold the same importance or it is just an accessory in contemporary Ghanaian music? Is drumming specific to certain cultures in Ghana?

NOA: I don’t think it is used in the same way. It was used as a form of communication and announcement before writing was introduced. It was used as a form of passing down history before more ‘formal’ education. Cultures change, and so has the significance of drumming, but I think what it brought to the cultures that it was, and continues to some degree to be, a part of, can be carried on in different forms and built on. It is what I try and do in my own work.