tijay

Artist statement

In the mid 1990’s, together with a few friends in Nima we were nick named “Kuborlor boys” because we gallivanted the streets and refuse dump sites of Accra collecting Metal scraps, bottles, cutleries, rubber shoes and broken furniture, sometime to sell or exchange for cinema tickets.

Today, in my art I assemble day-to-day objects into symbolic engaging discoveries that are sometimes seen as group portraits, I communicate the hopefulness in discarded remains in our lives that are often overlooked, forgotten and or no longer valuable but recall the history of their previous breathes and proprietors. I insinuate greater relationship to our diaries, aspirations, letdowns and contemporary lives.

The portfolio of these surplus occasionally includes donations from participants of the community within which the idea evolved, hundreds or thousands of fabric pieces, t-shirts, shoes, texts, stationary, paintings, drawings and photographs are mobilized for my site-specific installations. Each piece becomes interactive when displayed in either indoor or outdoor space, intimate and pronounced affairs, and history and new meanings lead the discourse between my art and the audience, whilst group and individual identity play a fluctuating role in my work in addressing issues of gender equality, migration and historical concerns.