RM Sunday Session: Creative Evolutions
For our RM Sunday Session on November 6th, we invited Kwadwo Amfo, Kemo Camara, and Yvette van Caldenborgh to discuss the topic of Black Modernism and the influence of black creators in contemporary art and society. How do black artists and other creatives find their home in white culture? And how do they expose society to the black experience? Coming from different backgrounds, the panel speakers will talk about their own experience as artist, curator, and community builder, and will discuss how we can create more opportunities for black creators to share their work.
Practical information:
Time: 2:00 – 3:00 PM (Drinks afterwards)
Location: Galerie Ron Mandos, Prinsengracht 282, Amsterdam
Language: English
About the Speakers:
Kwadwo Amfo currently exhibits his photographic series DIPO at Galerie Ron Mandos. DIPO is about a puberty rite performed by the Shai and the Krobo people of southeastern Ghana. Kwadwo Amfo is a Ghanaian artist who recently graduated from the Royal Academy of the Arts in the Hague. He participated in the Best of Graduates 2022 exhibition and is the recipient of the RM Photo Talent Award of 2022. His exhibition runs from October 1 through November 13, 2022. Read more about the exhibition here.
Kemo Camara is the founder of Omek, a platform he designed to connect and empower African diaspora professionals and their allies. Yet, Omek is more than connecting African diaspora professionals — it’s about creating a sense of belonging, purpose, and growth. Read more about Kemo Camara here and about Omek here.
Yvette van Caldenborgh is one of the founders of Art Fix, an online storytelling platform that makes contemporary art accessible. Art Fix recently released a limited edition print of a photograph by Kwadwo Amfo. After completing her studies in Art History, Yvette van Caldenborgh became a curator for the Caldic Collection and ran her own art-advising company. After years of curating, art-advising and touring art enthusiasts, she realized the power of storytelling in art. It has the power to bring the art works to life. This was her prime motivation to start Art Fix. Read more about Art Fix
ABOUT Kwadwo Amfo
Kwadwo Amfo was born in 1990, in Ghana
He lives and works in Amsterdam
Kwadwo Amfo established an early interest in art making while growing up which led him to be enrolled into the Visual Arts department in secondary school and did his elective courses in Textiles, Graphic Design, General Knowledge in Art and English Literature. While in secondary school, Amfo developed his love for textile and graphic design while re-enforcing his interest in photography/filmmaking and realised that the two can go hand in hand as he pursued photography (Fiction) at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.
Social commentary became the base of Amfo’s work throughout the years ranging from societal beauty standards, identity politics, social inclusion and conformity, and topics on the self and the other. Amfo has expanded this into works that speak representations of misrepresentations, stereotypes and struggles of people of colour. Amfo’s decision to almost exclusively depict black characters, individuals of African heritage, reflects his desire, born of his own experiences, to bring to the fore the inadequate and troubling representations of black people in today’s media, as well as throughout history. In this way their blackness is both a reminder of his search for truth and a microcosm of how the societies in which we live construct the value systems that affect us all.
Use of video media in the virtual space and augmented reality is a new feature in Amfo’s ever expanding creative process. Amfo has broadly exhibited his work at the Scotia Bank Contact Photo Festival in Toronto, in Netherlands and Ghana.
