AMARKINE AMARTEIFIO: ZAN/ZONGO LANDSCAPE.

By Nii B. Andrews.

Zongo or Zango is an old [Hausa] term for a caravan resting place just outside a walled city.

Zongos are areas of contemporary West African towns established as a result of trading activities. In Ghana, they mostly came into existence before colonization.

These settlements are still viewed as places inhabited by ‘strangers’ who are often identified with Islam – the religion of the majority of Hausa traders; today the term denotes a “historical migrant settlement”.

Allman in his published research states, “The position of the zongo community with regard to the traditional structures of power has always been one of patronage and protection”.

Contemporary Zongos are often characterized by overcrowding and inadequate sanitation, and represent, both symbolically and practically, a condition that is between inclusion and exclusion.

They are definite locations, with their own specific urban features, although they incorporate social notions that go beyond their spatial connotations.

The Zongo itself is an attempt to include and regulate the presence of migrants in their host communities, where all the actors involved are constantly negotiating their own socio-political position and their own citizenship rights.

The Ghanaian artist, Amarkine Amarteifio, in a series of paintings presents a synopsis of the architectural makeup of the Zongo.

Through the application of ochre and browns in variegated shades with deliberate brush strokes and an uncanny cinematic use of sunshine and shadow, he is able to demonstrate the innovative improvisation and bricolage that almost always characterises the buildings.

Different woods of varying lengths and widths and state of dress are assembled together by eclectic joining systems.

The joinery reveals the imprecision of aspirational handiwork and the modulations of time and clime.

Sometimes in between the wooden board lengths are areas of corrugated iron sheets rusting in diverse degrees.

Other times, we see adobe side by side with concrete.

In this setting, nothing is homogenous. Perhaps, this is an allusion to the components of the Zongo community’s specific memory of migration.

Do we need to remind ourselves that by far the largest proportion of migration in Africa is WITHIN the continent and not to Europe!?

We must not forget that Zongo people have shown themselves to be active interlocutors in the production of a shared memory and of a history of migrant communities.

At the same time, migration constitutes a dynamic and driving factor within hosting societies, where migrant communities often act as catalysts for political change and social transformation, and offer challenges to the existing model of citizenship rights.

Hence it is appropriate and instructive that in almost every painting, Amarteifio shows an open window – a sign of interaction between those within and without; a symbol of faith and hope in a collective future.

*****All paintings are by kind courtesy of the artist Armakine Amarteifio.