Symposium Agyina: Advisory of Sages; Bernard Akoi-Jackson, Selom Koffi Kudjie, Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh, Doreen Mende, Sanas Sohrabi, 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, 2023/2024, accompanying event at MGLC Švicarija.
Photo: Gregor Gobec. MGLC Archive.
As part of the 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, which explored the ecosystem of connections, solidarities and histories of resistance resulting from the formerly close relations between post-independence Ghana and the former Yugoslavia, an international symposium entitled Agyina: Advisory of Sages was held in Ljubljana. The Biennale’s public programme was curated by Exit Frame Collective from Ghana, which named the symposium Agyina in reference to Ghana’s largest ethnic group and their notion of a council that speaks to the fact that it takes more than one voice to have a meaningful discussion or debate.
The symposium’s three-day extended programme of film screenings, presentations, talks, lectures, panel discussions, exhibitions, tours and social gatherings followed the curatorial premise of the 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts to explore the void and the space of potential, opening a window onto a cosmos of forms, solidarities, futures, resistances and transnational relations. Besides the void, another important offshoot for this edition of the Biennale was the idea of the gift, inspired by the political ambitions of the legendary Ghanaian artist and intellectual known under the pseudonym kąrî’k· achä seid’ou, who, as a pedagogue at the Kumasi Academy of Art, sought to emancipate the teaching of art and turn the work of art from a marketable commodity into a gift. kąrî’k· achä seid’ou was the keynote speaker at the Biennale Symposium in Ljubljana.
Symposium concept: Exit Frame Collective.