Ato Annan
Ato Annan is an artist and currently a CoDirector for the Foundation for Contemporary Art-Ghana, where he collaborates on curatorial projects for exhibitions, public art programs, and workshops that support artists in Accra, the West African sub region and internationally. With a particular interest in public art and its ability to democratize the audience of art, he has since 2011 co-curated the contemporary art component of the Chale Wote Street Art Festival, a festival FCA-Ghana collaborates on with AccradotAlt the festival producers. In 2013 he was associate project curator for the 3rd Asiko International Art Residency Program The Archive: Static, Embodied, Practiced, with the Nigerian International independent curator Bisi Silva, founder of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos. He coordinated in 2012, the smARTpower Laboratory workshop in Accra. This project was an initiative of the U.S. State Department, administered by Bronx Museum of the Arts. Ato Annan has on three consecutive occasions facilitated the Global Crit Clinic in Accra, a professional development clinic that focuses on Fine Arts pedagogical studio critique. This has been done in collaboration with Kianga Ford and Shane Aslan, faculty from Parsons, The New School for Design, NY. As an artist he works across painting, installation, performance, sound and video. His work examines the everyday realities of his society and interrogates the complex issues of space, advertising and history. He is particularly interested in individual experiences in life and how it connects with wider social histories. His work has been exhibited in Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Italy, Holland, Denmark, India and the United States and is in collections of the British Council, Accra, Ghana, Goethe Institut, Accra, Ghana, W.E.B. Dubois Centre, Accra, Ghana, Whatcom Community College, Bellingham, USA and Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, Napoli, Italy.