Two of our ECP-FG members entered the Haus of Der Statistik to visit the exhibition Concrete Limbo. The building hosting the show is located just next to Alexanderplatz. It is an enormous ghost building suspended in time, hovering over the centre of Berlin. Only from far away you can read the enormous red letters “STOP WARS” painted over the concrete block. You might think the structure is abandoned and empty, yet it is still undergoing changes. With graffiti everywhere inside its bowels, the space is a welcome refuge for art.
Benjamin Merten and Limbo Accra invested in the place and curated multidisciplinary pieces from various artists from the West African continent. Among them is Elihu Ashong, a photographer, contemporary artist and member of the European Cultural Parliament-Future Generation and participant to the ECP-FG Mentorship Programme. After attending Elihu’s presentation of his installation “Hollow Dreams”, the ECP-FG team interviewed him.
How did you start photography ?
I started photography by accident. I love photographing plants. You know, I used to walk around photographing plants and people would be laughing at me back in secondary school. It was just for my love of nature and that developed into something deeper. From plants, to having plants and then photographing people.
For the exhibition Concrete Limbo, you created the installation “Hollow Dreams”. How does this other art form relate to your work in photography ?
Photography is just one medium I use as an artist. Art is just a representation of society. So in any body of work, I try as much as possible to make it relevant to the current times we live in. Art is a form of commentary; as artists we have to use our voice to inspire, to confront.
If you look at photography, you see one still image. Creating an installation is taking you inside that picture and it becomes a fully tridimensional experience. I am bringing my audience into the photograph and inside my mind; in this way we are creating the photo together. It’s not a photo that you look at, but an image of which you are an indissoluble part of.
You recently entered an art production company. Did it make you have new insights into Berlin's art scene ?
It gave me the opportunity to network. It was one of the main reasons I moved to Berlin: to have access to this wide, endless supply of art and creativity. However, in the agency I get to meet different people involved in many arts and disciplines. From photography to cooking, painting and construction work. This job gave me a bit of an opening into other segments of the creative scene. You know, it’s just another channel to share more ideas and establish more collaborations.
What is the most important message you wanted to convey with your installation at Concrete Limbo ?
Through the installation “Hollow Dreams”, I think the most important message conveyed is, as individuals we play a role, as minute as it may seem, in the vicious cycle of capitalism, gentrification, racism... even if sometimes we don’t even know about it.
It is also very conceptual and open to interpretation. For me, it is more of a social experiment. I am here with people and they interact with the work in different ways, they ask different questions, share different ideas. It was an experiment to understand how we interrelate with nature, with the concrete spaces we inhabit and how we live with society.
This work is open to interpretation, although it addresses the issues of capitalism, gentrification, unsustainable ways of building as well as cheap labour.
Why did you qualify the exhibition as a trans-continental dialogue of space and responsibility ? As you are originally from Ghana and currently in Berlin, how can this piece be a mix of both places and spaces for you ?
As someone whose ideas are crucially founded on the concept of ‘a constantly forward moving Africa’, I live, breath and literally think only about Pan-africanism. I was working with Leila, a Moroccan artist, and that felt like starting to bridge that gap. For Africa to move forward, we need to be close to each other and advance together. I also had the opportunity to interact with indigenous Germans and Europeans. Whilst collaborating and creating art, we are bridging the transnational gap.
This work is relevant because most of the things I see here are representations of what I see in Ghana. Accra, the city where I used to live, never underwent proper urban planning and is currently being remodelled and renewed. I can mirror that with Berlin, which seems also in a state of constant reconstruction over the last 10 years.
For example, this building at Alexanderplatz has been standing like this for many years. Politicians come into power and decide to start building but then they get out of power, there is no more money and the half-finished structures are just standing there in a state of limbo. In this limbo, you don’t know whether this building has been there for ten years or whether it's still being built because it is incomplete. You don’t know if it's still going forward, standing or it's only a remnant of the past.
The world itself is always undergoing reconstruction. With the onset of COVID the world stood still and is still in some sort of limbo. This process of reconstruction occurs in many layers, affecting the single individual migrating from Ghana to Berlin, to the world as a whole.
Do you think art can make people more aware of their surroundings ?
Yes, definitely. Because of art people are drawn to and interact with their surroundings. That is why I don’t really support the idea of creating art solely for galleries. Unless I take my art into public space, I feel that I am making my art elitist, only for the few privileged people you can usually find drinking expensive wine at exhibition openings. Common people in the street might think “this is not for me”. But if art is easily available, just there in the public space, the passerby can observe and interact, no matter if with his or her child, if coming back from a party, or if being rich or homeless. Without these barriers, it has a greater chance of making an impact.
Do you think that art is compatible with nature ? Or is culture always opposed to nature ? For example, in your installation you are displaying plants but more as a criticism of how people are “using” them...
I always say that mother nature is the greatest artist of all time. Look at Berlin now in autumn, look at the colours, look at trees around you. You know, I walk around and my mind is completely blown by the beauty of the leaves. When the sun is setting, I look at the pastels in the sky. I wear a lot of black, but whenever I want to paint or wear colours I go online and look up for flowers. I see the flowers that have three or four colours and so I know that if I paint those colours together they will be in harmony.
Actually, I think nature and art have always been synonymous and complementary but the issue is when human interference comes in. That is when there has always been some strife. Nature on its own can always adapt and grow but when the human element comes in and tries to extract nature from its habitat the consequences are sometimes distressing. When humans are not careful in their interaction with nature, they cause the strife and the chaos.
Tomorrow is the last day of the show. What feedback did you receive ? Are you happy with your work and the exhibition ?
As an artist of colour, it is always very exciting to have the opportunity to showcase your work in spaces like the Haus Der Statistik, which is so central and well-known. People have been asking how did I land in such a spot when I have been here only for seven months. It is wonderful to be exhibiting here. The most important for an artist is coverage and exposure, being able to show your work and see how it gets people talking. I have a lot of interesting conversations with people that came to see my installation and they will relate differently to it. Also, it has opened new doors for collaborations with forward-thinking individuals, which I could meet thanks to this amazing opportunity.
I am grateful to the whole Limbo team, Ben, founder of “thxagain.berlin”, the curator for making all this possible. In Europe most of the arts are predominantly white, the fact that they are holding this central space for people of colour is really important. We need more of that because they are beautiful stories that come from Africa.
As an artist it is my responsibility to show to the world what Africa really is, not what they see on CNN or BBC. It allows me to interact with people that never went to Ghana, and to tell them about Ghana, about Africa, its art, its people and their culture. It is also about cultural diplomacy, about branding a Place, a Nation, a Continent using art. I am happy to lend my voice to the global struggle of black people to be heard, to be recognised and to be respected.