Catalogue: Exhibition of the Exhibition

From the start, a key objective of the Gold Matters’ project was that visual materials –photos, videos – co-created with members of mining communities, should circulate between these communities. We envisaged organizing ‘pop-up’ exhibitions, which would travel from West Africa, to Uganda, and the Amazon, and adding new works while on the road. Due to COVID-19, we were only able to organize one pop-up exhibition, from 12-15 January 2020 in Kejetia, northern Ghana.

Simultaneous to the preparation of the pop-up exhibition, curated by photographer Nii Obodai, we initiated various activities of co-labouring with members of the community, as part of what we called our ‘Sustainability Conversations Workshop’. The workshop involved residents of the mining community in Kejetia (including male gold miners, women involved in processing ore and schoolchildren). Gold Matters researchers from Europe and West Africa were also present, a cartographer, gold miners from another research site in the south of Ghana who had travelled with the research team to the north, photographers Nii Obodai and Mabel Seena, and painter Christophe Sawadogo. At the workshop, we collaborated to visualise gold mining spaces, gold miners’ lifeways, and ideas about sustainable futures. The activities included the mapping of Kejetia’s mining space via ‘walk-alongs’, using mobile mapping devices; co-labouring in the making of installation art guided and inspired by Christophe Sawadogo, and a photography workshop with schoolchildren, supervised by Mabel Seena. This event is the entry-point to this on-line exhibition, with a first room dedicated to the Exhibition of the Exhibition, which centers on:
  Co-labouring in the 3-D field
  Co-labouring around art
  The photographic pop-up exhibition.

This is only the start. The Gold Matter’s project takes you on a journey through the three regions where we work: From the Arts of Co-Labouring, to ARTistic and ARTisanal, to In-depth Terrains, to Gold Lifeways, and Moving Matters.

Co-Labouring in the (3D) Field

Co-labouring is a key aspect of the Gold Matters project. It can be seen as a form of learning by preparing, doing and reflecting on activities in our project, which brings together a diverse group of researchers, artists and gold miners. Co-labouring creates shared experiences and moments of enjoyment (or stress), and facilitates the exchange of knowledge and generation of new perspectives.

In the Gold Matter’s Kejetia exhibition and workshop (January 2020) forms of co-labouring took different shapes: walking through mining environments together, thereby engaging in discussions about how these environments can be understood; jointly mapping and photographing different aspects of mining on the surface, meanwhile engaging in conversations among ourselves, but also with those working and living in the places we encountered; and creating photo and video material by miners of sub-surface domains that are difficult to access for outsiders. Typically such visual material informed further discussions in small groups or one-to-one afterwards.

The process of co-labouring we engaged in resulted in the creation of knowledge, not just in terms of words or text, but also in terms of visual material: photo and film. Consequently, we tried to expose underground work situations, geological features and socio-spatial relations for researchers and audiences who cannot access them directly. The mobile character of our co-labouring activities, bringing together participants from different regions, stimulated conversations between, for example, miners from the south and the north of Ghana, leading to sharing of experiences and strategies with regard to the targeting of gold, but also to how to best take care of ones’ own health. In some cases, it even revived old friendships, as long-time friends were coincidentally stumbled upon.

Co-Labouring in Art

Co-labouring around art is seen as a playful process in which social ties are made, social concerns expressed, and possible futures portrayed. Through artistic collaborations in transdisciplinary research, it is possible to highlight the extraordinary and to look anew at the daily. During the workshop in Kejetia, the painter Christophe Sawadogo and photographer Mabel Seena engaged in the making of artworks with residents of Kejetia. Together with women, Christophe created an art installation; Mabel co-laboured with schoolchildren in a photography project. For Christophe the line between art and the social is trespassed constantly; there is so much art in daily work. Just look at the plaster designs women in villages in northern Ghana and southern Burkina draw on their houses when they make repairs after the rainy season.

The collaborative artwork in Kejetia was prompted by sad events, which occurred underground. In recent years, the mining community of Gbane, of which Kejetia is part, had been shocked by a series of fatal accidents involving gold miners working underground for small-scale gold operations as well asemployees of the Chinese run Shaanxi mining operation. Christophe Sawadogo aimed to co-labour by creating art that would both symbolize the work of artisanal gold miners and commemorate the miners who had died in the dreadful accidents.

Mabel organized a workshop with schoolchildren of the Bonsa Basic Academy, a private school in Gbane which was founded by a former gold miner. Her aim was to instruct the children how to use the camera and, by strolling with them through town, inviting them to make photographs of scenes and events that they consider characteristic of their daily lives.

Photo Exhibition

A photo exhibition was held in Kejetia, northern Ghana, in January 2020. Here, we present photos of the exhibition. It expressed a central aspect of the transdisciplinary Gold Matters project to strengthen connections between mining experiences and practices across regions of West Africa (Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Guinea), East Africa  (Uganda)and the Amazon (Brazil, Suriname and French Guyana). Gold mining worlds are always on the move miners, knowledges and practices travel. Gold miners learn from experiences they have gained in different places, and the mobility of knowledge provides incentives to innovations, both socially and technologically.

The Gold Matters project is part of such mobilities and seeks to contribute to the critical comparison of mining worlds. One way of doing this is by discussing and showing the variety of (in-depth) gold mining terrains, social arrangements, and technical developments in different mining regions.

For the exhibition in Kejetia, the Gold Matter’s team brought together photographs taken in the regions where they are undertaking research. On the basis of this photo archive, Nii Obodai curated and produced the exhibition in Kejetia. He was assisted by Mabel Seena. This inspired the name of this part of the on-line exhibition: The Exhibition of the Exhibition. Here we show the process of how, in January 2020, the Exhibition was organized and finally opened in a most festive way. Many photos which featured in the exhibition in Kejetia, also have a place in this on-line exhibition. They can be found in the thematic parts, on the wall of the region where the photos were taken. Nii Obodai’s black and white photographs can be found in the thematic section of ‘ARTistic and ARTisanal’.

Co-Labouring in the (3D) Field

Co-Labouring in Art

Photo Exhibition