This archive report was first published on 7 July 2020.
July 7, 2020
Ghanaian-German artist Zohra Opoku has found inspiration in the Black Lives Matter movement while stuck in Dakar, Senegal, due to coronavirus lockdowns.
Opoku, 44, was at a residency in Dakar when Senegal closed its borders in March. She had been creating large textile collages to explore her self-image after a cancer diagnosis.
When the death of George Floyd in U.S. police custody sparked a global reckoning over racial injustice and oppression, Opoku stitched a new piece in tribute to the movement.
‘Say Their Names’ is a white and indigo-dyed canvas onto which Opoku has sewn dozens of images of an unidentified face from ancient Egyptian art. Some are printed in red and tumble from a screenprint of Opoku’s face like teardrops.
“The protests ‘have shaken us and awakened us and sharpened our senses about what kind of world we want to live in,’” she said, standing in front of the work-in-progress in her studio at the Black Rock Senegal residency.
Opoku has a rare perspective on the Black experience after growing up surrounded by white people in communist East Germany, the daughter of a Ghanaian father and German mother.
“I was always standing out too much,” recalled Opoku, who now calls Accra home. “I learned to resist the racist energy and hate against coloured people in East Germany, especially after the wall came down.”
