“WHEN HUNGER WAS LAUGHED AT”

By Josh Adjetey Akpor
At the Museum of Science & Technology, Barnes Road, Accra

Ghanaian artist Josh Akpor presents When Hunger Was Laughed At, a new exhibition of 25 paintings and 4 sculptures created during his artist residency with Arms Around the Child in Accra. The show opens on 25 April 2025 at the Museum of Science and Technology. 

When Hunger Was Laughed At draws inspiration from the Homowo Festival, celebrated by the Ga people of Ghana as a remembrance of famine and a celebration of survival. Akpor, known for his bold figurative compositions and layered use of mixed media, turns his lens towards community, ancestry, and the visual language of resilience. Through garments, posture, colour, and setting, his portraits capture a people who continue to show up for tradition, with pride, strength, and memory in their gaze.

Working primarily on treated denim canvases with the addition of clay and paint, Akpor builds depth not just in surface but in meaning. Clay, used here as both material and metaphor, speaks to earth, origin, and the shaping of stories that are meant to last. The paintings echo the power of public ritual, but do not romanticise it. Instead, Akpor presents scenes that feel lived-in: a boy perched beneath the robes of elders, a woman surrounded by music and kin, a quiet intensity in the eyes of a man dressed in full regalia. There is celebration here, but it is not performative.

“This exhibition honours the courage it takes not only to survive hardship but to turn it into something sacred. These works are rooted in a festival that hoots at hunger and refuses to be silenced by the past,” says curator Zahra Faye.