A few weeks ago, our team had the honor and pleasure of connecting with transnational filmmaker and producer Akosua Adoma Owusu. The avant-garde artist works in Ghana, the US, and in Europe making films that reflect the genre of “personal cinema.” Over the past several years, Owusu’s work has garnered prolific attention from a range of international academic institutions, museums, journals, and festivals.
Through the Audio-Visual Africa project, we aim to consult with Owusu about collecting and preserving her work. As a woman filmmaker who interrogates questions of diaspora, gender, blackness, and personal expression, we are excited by her unique vision and production. Owusu’s sharp and innovative films speak to the kind of motion picture material the Audio-Visual Africa project seeks to celebrate.
Owusu has a clear vision of the nature of her work and its intended impact on audiences worldwide. In her personal statement drawn from her website, Obibini Pictures LLC, Owusu proclaims:
“Through my artwork and films, I hope to open audiences up to a new dialogue between the continents of Africa and America; one that incorporates more than just stereotypes, but includes both conventionalized and un-conventionalized discourses of race in its service. By creating complex contradictions, I hope that new meaning can emerge and be deposited into the universal consciousness. If I can do this by creating an experience for the audience that enables them to experience what it is like to find oneself, while being foreign in a community, then perhaps I can help that new meaning come to light”.
For more on Owusu’s work, check out her website. For videos, trailers, and teasers, check out Owusu’s production company Vimeo page.
All images posted in this blog have been provided directly from the artist.
