Percy Nii Nortey: Break from Reality

In the course of the Dekoloniale Artist Residency 2024 “Colonial Ghosts – Resistant Spirits: Church, Colonialism and beyond” at the exhibition Dekoloniale – what remains?!, five selected guest artists present their works at the Museum Nikolakirche and also work with and in the public space of Berlin.

The foundation of Nortey’s art practice is the collaboration with various proletariat community members in Ghana, including car mechanics, charcoal sellers, and market women. He uses fabric stained from their daily work to reflect their labor and how essential it is for society as a whole.

By distributing fabric to workers and later collecting it stained with oil, fuel, and dirt, he transforms these materials, charged with personal histories, into proxies for collective memory. His approach actively engages the local community, fostering connections, and reshaping perceptions to highlight the importance of their labor in society, thus contributing to the decolonization of minds.

Break from Reality aims to dismantle colonial ideologies of white supremacy spread by European missionaries in 19th-century Ghana. The project empowers Black communities by portraying the Black proletariat as equals to the white man.

These sound clips fused together provide a critical narrative on the role of religion and colonialism, challenging imposed ideologies and reinforcing the liberation of Black and African minds.