Elisabeth Efua Sutherland presented an artistic performance titled ‘still Aluta Continua’, on the evening of March 10, 2022, as part of The Africa Institute’s second scholarly country-focused program themed, ‘Global Ghana: Sites of Departure/Sites of Return’. The event was hosted at the Sharjah Art Foundation, Al Hamriya Studios located in Sharjah, UAE.

The powerful performance examined the ideas of legacy and forward movement related to the quest for true African liberation. The performance references and borrows its name from the collection of 6 published Panaf pamphlets by Kwame Nkrumah. It engages with questions of anti-imperialism, neo-colonialism, and self-love as they underpin contemporary African economic, political, and daily struggles. It serves as a reminder to the people of the African continent and to our leaders of the words of Kwame Nkrumah – we face neither east nor west, we face forward.

Elisabeth Efua G. Sutherland (BA Theatre, DePauw University 2013; MA Contemporary Performance Making, Brunel University 2016) comes from a background in theatre and dance, and has a career that includes movement practice, cultural production, new media, film, and storytelling. Sutherland works mainly across performance and theatre, and she engages extensively with new fields, media, and materials. She is increasingly concerned with interactivity, video, sculpture, and texture in making performance objects.

Her interests lie in the construction of contemporary African cultural narrative, how bodies host narratives, how these can hold and transfer power; and also, how these narratives manifest themselves as belief and become interwoven into the fabric of the daily lives of individuals and communities on the continent.

Sutherland has been an artist in residence at the Google Cultural Institute (Paris), which was organized by 89Plus, and co-curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Simon Castets, and Julie Boukobza (2016); at the Villa Empain (2017); and at the Harn Museum of Art (2017). Group shows featuring her work include 89Plus at the LUMA Foundation in 2015 and 2017; with Gallery 1957 (Accra, Ghana) as part of a collaborative show with fantasy coffin maker Paa Joe in 2017; and performances at the inaugural 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in Marrakech in 2018. Sutherland founded the Terra Alta Black Box theatre project – a multi-use performance, rehearsal, and development space- in 2017 as an artist’s response to the lack of accessible R&D infrastructure for the arts in Accra – and particularly, lack of space for performance and new media.

Elisabeth Efua Sutherland presented an artistic performance titled ‘still Aluta Continua’, on the evening of March 10, 2022, as part of The Africa Institute’s second scholarly country-focused program themed, ‘Global Ghana: Sites of Departure/Sites of Return’. The event was hosted at the Sharjah Art Foundation, Al Hamriya Studios located in Sharjah, UAE.

Elisabeth Efua Sutherland presented an artistic performance titled ‘still Aluta Continua’, on the evening of March 10, 2022, as part of The Africa Institute’s second scholarly country-focused program themed, ‘Global Ghana: Sites of Departure/Sites of Return’. The event was hosted at the Sharjah Art Foundation, Al Hamriya Studios located in Sharjah, UAE.

The powerful performance examined the ideas of legacy and forward movement related to the quest for true African liberation. The performance references and borrows its name from the collection of 6 published Panaf pamphlets by Kwame Nkrumah. It engages with questions of anti-imperialism, neo-colonialism, and self-love as they underpin contemporary African economic, political, and daily struggles. It serves as a reminder to the people of the African continent and to our leaders of the words of Kwame Nkrumah – we face neither east nor west, we face forward.

Elisabeth Efua G. Sutherland (BA Theatre, DePauw University 2013; MA Contemporary Performance Making, Brunel University 2016) comes from a background in theatre and dance, and has a career that includes movement practice, cultural production, new media, film, and storytelling. Sutherland works mainly across performance and theatre, and she engages extensively with new fields, media, and materials. She is increasingly concerned with interactivity, video, sculpture, and texture in making performance objects.

Her interests lie in the construction of contemporary African cultural narrative, how bodies host narratives, how these can hold and transfer power; and also, how these narratives manifest themselves as belief and become interwoven into the fabric of the daily lives of individuals and communities on the continent.

Sutherland has been an artist in residence at the Google Cultural Institute (Paris), which was organized by 89Plus, and co-curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Simon Castets, and Julie Boukobza (2016); at the Villa Empain (2017); and at the Harn Museum of Art (2017). Group shows featuring her work include 89Plus at the LUMA Foundation in 2015 and 2017; with Gallery 1957 (Accra, Ghana) as part of a collaborative show with fantasy coffin maker Paa Joe in 2017; and performances at the inaugural 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in Marrakech in 2018. Sutherland founded the Terra Alta Black Box theatre project – a multi-use performance, rehearsal, and development space- in 2017 as an artist’s response to the lack of accessible R&D infrastructure for the arts in Accra – and particularly, lack of space for performance and new media.

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