Wandgemälde HOW THE LEOPARD GOT HIS CLAWS

In the organizer's words:

Not Afraid of Art - under this title, the academy members and international artists are collaborating with the Cologne art scene as part of a three-year project. The aim is to create a space for shared learning and to cultivate an understanding of the social and political potential of art.

Yussif Musah, born in 1997, studied painting and sculpture in Kumasi, Ghana. Commissioned by the Academy of the Arts of the World and in cooperation with the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum (RJM), the Ghanaian artist Yussif Musah has created an impressive mural that engages with the photographic archives of the RJM and the Documentation Center and Museum for Migration in Germany (DOMiD). The mural is part of the exhibition Not Afraid of Art andis the result of Musah's six months of intensive artistic research in these archives. The title of the work is inspired by the book of the same name by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.

What happens when photographic documents from the recent present meet photographs from the colonial era? What connections can be made and what continuities can be identified?