Murals Unveil Accra’s brewing ‘ménage à trois’
The murals emerging on Accra’s streets and in neighborhoods tell a tale of a growing love for art, economic growth, and displacement.
Blooming concrete jungles and the monotony of the urban environment must be disrupted with nature and art. Accra has largely failed at preserving green spaces in the city but it is seeking to compensate with art. Street art is truly evolutionary. Like most art, its mold and utility in society are continuously in flux. Street art as a placemaking strategy in itself is ingenious but in many cases, it is merely a Band-Aid solution to deeper issues.
The growth and transformation of urban commons open up conversations of “right to the city”, the concentration of poverty and affluence, and displacement. Equity and inclusion must be guiding principles in conversations of urban revitalization even though, gentrification remains a desirable urban growth objective of most city governments- especially in developing cities. This makes Accra’s “Art for All” initiative important yet ripe for critical review.
Accra- the city at the center of the wildly successful #YearOfReturn celebration last year- continues to rock! to the envy and admiration of its West-African neighbors.
The city’s population and economy continue to grow. Urbanizing at a rate of about 4.5 %, the city’s economy continues to grow as well. As the demography of millennials continues to expand there is a reinspired and growing art movement which is boosting the appreciation and patronage of art.
Spaces of Art
Mainly indigenous and inner-city Accra- Jamestown, Chorkor, and Nima- have always had street art in some shape or form and have recently become incubators of the new street art movement, including murals. Murals are improving the ‘vibes and feel’ in these neighborhoods which have become watersheds of the new urban art scene, case in reference, Chale Wote- an urban art festival that has evolved into space for truly radical vibrant youthful art. Last year, Accra also hosted Afrochella and many other events. Many organizations are doing important and impactful art-oriented work: ACCRA [dot] ALT, the Goethe Institut, Alliance Francaise Accra, and many other local organizations. Urban planners and city officials have been slow to recognizing street art as a competent placemaking tool but this is changing!
When heritage, cultural diversity, history, and colorful paint is combined, truly beautifully inspiring art is produced
“Arts for All”
The Creative Art Council recently launched its “Arts for All” initiative that is already transforming the urban landscape in Accra. One of my favorite interchanges in Accra has been given an artistic makeup by some of Accra’s leading artists. The project is engaging some 43 artists in a long-overdue move.
Two of the young, inspirational artists in the collaborative are Mantse Aryeequaye and Moh Awudu. The prolific Ghanaian artists have been at the vanguard of the revival of the street art in Accra. The art form which has been largely negatively perceived by the public is undergoing its own renaissance.
“I laugh at the way some people think graffiti is all selfish tagging and vandalism. Thoughtful street art is like good fiction — it speaks out on behalf of everyone, for us all to see.” — Carla H. Krueger
African city life, in fact, urban life in general, can often be a hassle: doldrum vehicular traffic, the ‘urban heat island’, the filth, stench, and the noise [my Accra ‘paddies’ know!]. It is important to curate urban neighborhoods with art, nature, and architecture to foster dreams, offer a distraction and inspire. Streets art does more than beautify public and community spaces. Even as the Arts for All initiative kicks off, the question of “Arts by Who and for Who? The initiative presents a unique opportunity to demonstrate the nexus between community engagement, creative placemaking, and equitable community development. How much community voice is involved in the entire voice?
“Street Art for the Public Good”
Street art is a critical tool for promoting equity and inclusion. Murals and thoughtful street art forms- offer accessibility to creative expressions without the barriers of class, income, or social status. They serve an artistic and perhaps altruistic purpose. Importantly, street art inspires a sense of belonging, place attachment, openness, and feelings of safety. They generally impact the community and individual’s mental health. The strengthening of the community’s attachment to space will also impact community stewardship, help reduce crime, and improve civic engagement. Perceptions of safety and its experience are also impacted by the presence of murals. It also mitigates the feeling of abandonment that can induce crimes of opportunity. They can also be used as a powerful medium to propagate positive messages. Overall, they are impactful. Murals and other public art forms are conspicuous signs of community revitalization or your neighborhood is simply GENTRIFYING. Whereas this may not be true for the places where the murals in Accra have been placed- there is a broader conversation about the right to the city, gentrification and ‘expulsions’ that need to be had.
The conversation on Gentrification in Accra is one that demands talking-about.
Gentrification in Accra… “chale, I dey move oo”
“Coffee shops, and vegan cafés and yoga studios are signs of gentrification and the telltales of displacement”- remarked my friend, Jacob. Ask yourself, “who lived on the land where the luxury apartment condos now stand?” We cannot talk about the growth of Accra without talking about the people who keep it pulsing and the people who are being displaced.
As the city of Accra grows and the middle-class shows signs of growth, the city is becoming increasingly unaffordable to a large number of lower-income residents and households.
As many urban experts and academics have observed over the years, income inequality in Accra is widening rapidly. Urban land is unaffordable to many Ghanaians living in Accra. In Accra, currency is power! The unabated income segregation of the city is resulting in the emergence of de facto artificial borders that keep certain neighborhoods inaccessible to low-income city dwellers. This results in further clusterization of poverty and opportunity within the city. Several reasons account for this.
The urban development ideologies embraced by local government and city planning officials and politicians are rooted in the “construction of shopping malls, luxury condominiums, tourism facilities…”
The urban development ideologies embraced by local government and city planning professionals and politicians are rooted in the “construction of shopping malls, luxury condominiums, tourism facilities…” (Falt, 2016). There is little dialogue on the issues of the concentration of affluence, poverty and “expulsions”- as defined by Saskia Sassen. Both the local and the national government have had a role in the ensuing gentrification that is being experienced in the city. Colonialism and imperialism cannot be exempted from blame either.
Indeed, Accra is growing, the economy is expanding, real estate is booming, but “for who?” Pause to ponder this- who are the real beneficiaries of Accra’s growth? As the city continues to experience growth, we need to begin to explore the hard and crucial questions of who are the “deserving beneficiaries and who are not? Growth but is it equitable and inclusive?
