Ghanaian Culture on Exhibition in the US

George Vincent Amagnoh, a Ghanaian graduate student at Ohio University in the US has mounted an exhibition at the Kennedy Museum of Art in Athens on the campus of Ohio University. The exhibition is based on the theme; ?The Brago experience: Seating with Honor to Motherhood?.

The exhibition is expected among others to draw attention to the significance of traditional stools (seats) in the social and political life of the girl-child among the Akan speaking people of Ghana. Speaking at the opening reception of the exhibition, George Amagnoh, the curator of the art work said, ?the stools role in the life of the girl-child, in terms of her journey through life and beyond is unsurpassed in any part on the continent of Africa. He also traced the symbolic significance of the stool in the life of the human race from birth to death where it is finally venerated and stored as an object for ancestral worship.

The curator [George Amagnoh] of the exhibition accompanied by friends and family members enacted the BRAGO as one of the many instances during which the stool plays a very symbolic role in the girl?s life. As part of the exhibition, were three of the stools cast by him. The exhibition which opened on May 12th 2005 is expected to be on till the end of spring of next year (2006). As part of his effort to propagate the Ghanaian culture, George Amagnoh has been organizing workshops for students in grades one to six in Athens county elementary schools teaching them some basic techniques in batik, tie-dye making.

In another development, George Amagnoh has opened his Master of Fine of Arts (sculpture) exhibition at the School of Art Gallery in Seigfred Hall (Ohio University). In this exhibition he featured a dismembered tree trunk which he had transformed into a unique artistic piece using individual or joint processes of piercing, bandaging, bolting, hooking, patching as used in Western medical practices. The exhibition which he titled AGOO, witnessed a performance which showcased the human body as a stand-in objects in the exhibition, where attention is drawn to the reckless nature that our environment is being destroyed human activities.

George Vincent Amagnoh is a Ghanaian who had his secondary education at Saint Paul?s Secondary school at Denu, and had his initially training as a teacher at Akatsi Training College all in the Volta region. He also attended the following tertiary institutions in Ghana, University College of Education- Winneba, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology- Kumasi, and the University of Cape Coast.

Currently at Ohio University he is graduating in two Masters Programs; namely International Affairs, and the second from the School of Art.