The Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) opens in Ghana

SCCA-Tamale intends, with its diverse programming and research interests, to spotlight significant moments in Ghanaian and international art in a communal space. Affiliated to blaxTARLINES KUMASI, the Centre is operated by committed, dedicated and generous persons who produce critical discourse that will eventually be disseminated through exhibitions, publications and allied activities.

SCCA-Tamale is dedicated to art and cultural practices which emerged in the 20th Century and inspire generations of artists and thinkers of the 21st Century and beyond. As an initiative of Ghanaian artist, Ibrahim Mahama, it is a contribution towards the development and expansion of the contemporary art scene in Ghana.

The first exhibition is curated by Bernard Akoi-Jackson and is a retrospective on the work of Ghanaian modernist Ko Dawson (b. 1940) who coined the term Afro-Journalism to describe his socially-committed art practice. Entitled “Galle Winston Kofi Dawson: In Pursuit of something ‘Beautiful’, perhaps…”, the exhibition harts the complex trajectory of an artist whose body of works stretches across a multiplicity of forms including serigraphy, etching, woodcut, ink and line drawing, acrylic and oil painting, collage, sculpture and installation.

A potentially turbulent period spanning more than fifty years of incredible dedication to artistic innovation, experimentation and political resolve is encapsulated in the curatorial selection of objects and texts. Whilst the greater portion of the exhibited works is selected from Dawson’s own holdings, a significant number is loaned or borrowed from a fair sampling of his collector base in Ghana.