Serwah Attafuah: The Darkness Between the Stars

An Afrofuturist exploration of climate change, land rights and the strength of West Africa’s Ashanti people, who originate from present-day Ghana.

Multidisciplinary artist and musician Serwah Attafuah weaves past, present and future into an Afrofuturist vision of resilience and reclamation in The Darkness Between the Stars. Across five screens, female warriors rise from burning slave castles and shipwrecked colonial vessels, their glitch-patterned kente cloth celebrating Ghana’s matrilineal traditions. These avatars honour Yaa Asantewaa, the Queen Mother who led the Ashanti uprising against British forces in 1900, and embody a defiant march towards liberation.

Gold – sacred to Ghanaians as a bridge between ancestors, the living and future generations – anchors this work. Once exploited by colonisers who dubbed Ghana the ‘Gold Coast’, today 98% of Ghana’s gold remains controlled by global corporations. Attafuah’s frames, crafted from repurposed e-waste and painted gold, reference this legacy while pointing to Agbogbloshie, Accra’s infamous e-waste dump.

Infused with ‘Sakawa’ – Ghanaian internet magic – this speculative vision imagines technology and discarded materials as tools of empowerment. Using VFX, animation and 3D modelling, Attafuah’s art critiques historical and modern exploitation while envisioning a future reclaimed.

Serwah Attafuah is the 2023 recipient of the Mordant Family Moving Image Commission for Young Australian Artists.

The Mordant Family Moving Image Commission for Young Australian Artists is created in partnership with Professor Cav. Simon Mordant AO and Catriona Mordant AM, John Allsopp from Web Directions, and ACMI.

Thanks to Haymes Paint for generously providing the Eggshell paint featured in The Darkness Between the Stars

For more information visit: https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/serwah-attafuah-darkness-between-stars/

Image credit: The Darkness Between the Stars, Serwah Attafuah, 2024, installation view.